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THE  RELATION  OF  SLAVERY  TO  A  REPUBLICAN  FORM  OF  GOVERNMENT 


A 


SPEECH 


DELIVERED  AT  THE 


flefo  (£ii<jlani>  ^Hti-Jilakrj  (fantkniroit, 


WEDNESDAY  MORNING,  MAY  26,  1858- 


BY  THEODORE  PARKER. 


REVISED  BY  THE  AUTHOR. 


\ 


BOSTON: 

WILLIAM  L.  KENT  &  COMPANY,  3  STATE  STREET. 

1-8  5  8  . 


Entered  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1858,  by 
\VM.  L.  KENT  AND  COMPANY, 

In  the  Clerk’s  Office  of  the  District  Court  of  the  District  of  Massachusetts. 


Geo.  C.  Rand  &  Avery,  Printers,  3  Cornhill,  Boston. 


7  *)  / 

fzi^r 


64  aj 


S  P  EE  C  II . 


/., 


Mr. President,  Ladies  and  Gentlemen: 
On  the  matter  of  Slavery  there  is  great  confu¬ 
sion  of  thought,  just  now,  in  the  American 
State  and  the  American  Church.  Monarchic 
and  Oligarchic  Europe  is  at  war  with  this  insti¬ 
tution.  The  British  Teuton  has  driven  it  out 
from  his  soil ;  his  kindred,  the  Dutch,  the 
Scandinavians,  the  Germans  and  Austrians, 
have  done  the  same.  The  French  Celts  allow 
no  property  in  man,  and  Napoleon’s  attempt 
to  restore  the  doctrine  and  practice  of  the  Dark 
Ages,  is  sure  to  fail.  Even  the  Russian  des¬ 
potism  attacks  the  principle  of  bondage.  Alex¬ 
ander  will  liberate  30,000,000  Caucasian  slaves, 
and  in  less  than  twelve  years  the  last  footprint 
of  the  serf  will  be  covered  up  by  the  new  hu¬ 
mane  agriculture  of  Russia.  Turkey  cannot 
long  hold  out  against  the  steady  progress  of 
mankind. 

But,  in  America,  the  Democratic  party 
thinks  slavery  is  “  indispensable  to  good  gov¬ 
ernment,”  and  is  “the  normal  condition  of  one 
seventh  part  of  the  people.”  The  Republican 
party  has  naught  to  say  against  property  in 
man,  but  allows  a  minority  to  own  a  majority 
in  South  Carolina.  The  American  Church  is 
the  stanchest  supporter  of  American  slavery. 
To  the  American  Politician,  slavery  is  a  “  Re¬ 
publican  Institution ;”  to  the  American  Priest, 
it  is  doubly  religious  — both  a  “  Jewish  ”  and  a 
“Christian  ”  Dispensation.  The  Revival  of  the 
Ecclesiastical  Religion  and  of  the  African 
slave  trade  go  on  at  the  same  time;  they  take 
sweet  counsel  together,  and  walk  to  the  house 
of  their  God  in  company.  Years  ago,  the 
greatest  professional  Rhetorician  of  America, 
“  the  Monarch  of  the  Platform,”  “  Orator,  Pa¬ 
triot,  Sage,  Cicero  of  America,  Laudator  of 
Washington,  Apostle  of  Charity,  High  Priest 
of  the  Union,  and  Friend  of  Mankind,”  whom 
“  totally  mendacious  Greece,”  if  she  might 
equal,  yet  could  ne’er  surpass  in  that  sophistic 
art,  justified  slavery  out  of  the  New  Testa¬ 
ment,  and  declared  his  readiness  to  buckle  on 
his  knapsack,  shoulder  his  musket,  and  march 


South,  to  defend  the  masters  who  make  mer 
chandise  of  men,  against  their  insurgent  chat-, 
tels.  I  know  not  whether  Mr.  Everett  said  that 
under  the  influence  of  “  an  anodyne  ”  or  a  stim¬ 
ulant  ;  but  neither  the  public  and  immediate 
reply  of  Southern  Congressmen,  nor  the  pri¬ 
vate  rebuke  of  more  distant  Jefferson — then  so 
near  the  grave  —  has  yet  led  this  “Patriot, 
Statesman,  Philanthropist,”  to  renounce  that 
statement  in  his  maiden  speech  !  Noble 
Charles  Sumner,  who  “  was  wounded  for  our 
transgressions,”  in  a  foreign  land  seeks  the 
quiet  and  health  he  cannot  find  in  this.  He 
bears  with  him  the  thanks  and  the  prayers  of 
religious  men  ;  but  his  sails  are  filled  with  the 
curses  of  the  Northern  Democrats,  the  South¬ 
ern  hiss  and  sneer,  the  contemptuous  laugh  of 
Richard  Yeadon,  and  the  remarkable  language 
of  Mr.  Everett,  their  rhetorical  coadjutor. 
“  Remarkable  language  ”  !  Is  there  not  a 
shorter  name  for  it,  also  wholly  Saxon  ? 

This  ecclesiastical  and  political  confusion  is 
amazing.  Can  you  and  I  do  something  to  end 
it  1  Let  us  try.  So  I  will  ask  your  attention 
to  some  Thoughts  on  the  Relation  of 
Slavery  to  a  Republican  Form  of  Gov¬ 
ernment. 

Man  is  gregarious  by  instinct ;  like  sheep 
and  deer,  he  cannot  live  save  in  flocks  and 
herds.  Solitary,  he  perishes.  He  is  social  by 
reflective  will  —  consciously  making  terms  of 
alliance  with  his  fellows,  and  shaping  the  form 
of  his  community  to  suit  his  needs,  which  vary 
from  age  to  age.  So  in  all  lands  men  group 
together,  the  wildest  and  also  the  most  enlight¬ 
ened  ;  for  this  gregarious  nature  of  man 
appears  in  all  stages  of  his  development — low¬ 
est  and  highest.  But,  while  the  gregarious 
savage  makes  only  a  herd  of  men  who  are 
driven  together  by  necessity,  or  drawn  by  their 
unreflective  instinct,  and  are  domineered  over 
by  the  strongest,  who,  though  he  protects  the 
feeble,  also  robs  them  of  their  natural  rights  as 


4 


pay  for  his  help  ;  the  reflective  civilized  man 
shapes  his  society  so  as  to  secure  the  Natural 
Rights  of  each  ;  the  ablest  man  rules,  but  it  is 
for  the  joint  good  of  him  and  all ;  and  he  does 
not  take  his  pay  by  robbing  them  of  their  rights, 
bat  rather  do  they  voluntarily  give  him  the 
sweeter  compensation  of  Honor  and  Gratitude. 
Thus  are  both  parties  materially  and  spiritually 
profited  by  the  alliance. 

There  are  two  great  things  to  be  considered 
in  human  History. 

1.  The  Individuality  of  each  man.  He  is 
an  integer,  a  Unit  of  Humanity,  impenetrable  ; 
his  humanity  must  be  respected. 

2.  The  Sociality  of  all  men:  they  must 
cohere  into  one  symmetric  whole.  There  is  a 
mutuality  of  social  need:  the  strong  man 
requires  the  Aveak  men  as  the  weak  needs  the 
strong.  As  the  doctor  wants  patients,  the 
speaker  hearers,  the  herdsman  cattle,  the  far¬ 
mer  land  ;  so  and  not  less  does  the  great  man 
need  the  little.  If  they  require  him  as  means 
for  their  protection  and  guidance,  so  docs  he 
need  them  as  means  for  his  development.  Nei¬ 
ther  greatness  nor  littleness  can  be  alone. 

Now,  the  Individual  reaches  his  proper 
groAvth  only  in  society — with  the  communion 
of  his  fellows.  A  great  character  cannot  be 
built  up  alone  ;  no  more  than  a  great  temple. 
A  hermit  constructs  no  pyramid  ;  he  achieves 
no  great,  noble  manhood.  The  man  running 
alone  goes  nowhere,  and  is  yet  soon  lost.  The 
more  perfect  and  complete  the  form  of  society, 
the  more  complete  and  perfect  are  the  individ¬ 
ual  men  whom  it  brings  up.  Society  is  to  be 
tested  by  the  men  it  breeds ;  that  is  the  best 
which  produces  the  best  and  most  superior 
individuals. 

The  Substance  of  Society  depends  on  the 
automatic  gregarious  instinct  which  groups 
men  into  flocks  and  herds ;  this  is  always  the 
same.  But  the  Form  of  Society  depends 
upon  the  will  and  intelligence  of  the  control¬ 
ling  men.  In  the  human  body  there  are  Vol¬ 
untary  Actions  —  eating,  speaking,  drinking, 
and  the  like ;  but  also  Involuntary  Actions, 
which  go  on  independent  of  the  individual  will 
—  such  as  breathing,  the  circulation  of  the 
blood,  and  the  like.  So  in  the  great  compa¬ 
nies  of  men,  there  are  automatic  actions  of 
the  community,  tribe,  nation,  or  mankind, 
which  are  not  purposed  by  individuals,  nor 
even  forethought  in  the  consciousness  of  any 
special  person  ;  these  are  to  the  Body  Social 
what  breathing  and  similar  things  are  to  the 


Body  Individual ;  they  belong  to  social  In¬ 
stinct,  not  social  Will. 

It  is  the  business  of  statesmen  to  regulate 
Jhe  action  of  both  the  voluntary  and  the  auto¬ 
matic  forces  of  the  collective  mass,  and  make 
such. a  Form  of  Society  as  shall  produce  noble 
men,  in  the  greatest  number  and  of  the  best 
kind. 

For  the  development  of  Society  there  must 
be  Government ;  that  is,  the  social  body  must 
observe  certain  Rules  of  Conduct,  called  Laws, 
whereto  all  persons  are  held  subject.  These 
may  be  Customs  which  men  hit  upon,  and  be¬ 
come  wonted  to  —  and  they  are  the  conse¬ 
quences  of  an  experiment,  the  product  of  his¬ 
tory,  the  record  of  the  past :  or  they  may  be 
the  Ideal  Aims  of  the  people  or  the  rulers, 
which  anticipate  experience,  and  are  intended 
to  shape  and  control  the  future  —  not  repre¬ 
senting  experiments  tried,  but  experiments  in 
process.  One  is  Common  Law,  made,  not 
enacted  —  a  path  worn  by  the  people's  feet ;  it 
is  a  public  highway  because  men  walk  there. 
The  other  is  Statute  Law,  enacted  by  con¬ 
scious  will,  not  made  by  actual  practice,  —  a 
road  laid  out  intentionally  by  the  surveyors; 
the  people  walk  there  because  it  is  a  public 
highway. 

These  twofold  laws  may  be  just  —  conform¬ 
able  to  the  Constitution  of  the  Universe,  the 
natural  Rule  of  Right,  and  the  reflection  thereof 
in  the  moral  sense  of  mankind  :  or  unjust — con¬ 
trary  to  that  Higher  Law  of  God  and  the  con¬ 
science  of  man. 

Human  experience  shows  that  all  govern¬ 
mental  power  of  one  man  over  others  is  abused 
for  the  advantage  of  the  holder  thereof,  and  the 
hurt  of  those  he  holds  it  over,  unless  thev  have 
abundant  means  to  keep  him  in  check,  and 
prevent  his  tyranny.  Irresponsible  governors 
make  bad  Iuavs.  The  private  conscience  of  the 
ruler  is  seldom  so  good  a  check  on  his  selfish¬ 
ness  as  the  rod  and  the  axe  in  the  hands  of  the 
governed. 

All  society  must  have  its  government,  that 
is,  Rules  of  Conduct,  and  Conductors  to  see 
that  they  are  kept  —  Abstract  Rules,  Concrete 
Rulers.  The  substance  of  government  con¬ 
sists  in  these  two,  and  is  always  the  same  :  but 
the  forms  thereof  vary  much  from  land  to 
land,  and  age  to  age ;  yet  may  they  be  thus 
grossly  summed  in  three : 

I.  Monarchy  —  The  One-Man  PoAver ;  gov¬ 
ernment  over  all,  but  by  one,  and  often  in 


5 


practice  it  turns  out  to  be  chiefly  for  the  sake 
of  that  one. 

II.  Oligarchy — The  Fcw-Men  Power;  gov¬ 
ernment  over  all,  but  by  a  few,  and  often  in 
practice  it  turns  out  to  be  chiefly  for  the  sake 
of  that  few. 

III.  Democracy  —  The  All-Men  Power ; 
government  over  all,  by  all,  and  for  the  sake 
of  all.  Yet,  practically,  it  must  be  government 
by  the  Majority,  and  in  fact,  it  often  turns  out 
to  be  chiefly  for  the  advantage  of  that  major¬ 
ity.  As  a  general  rule,  no  majority,  no  small 
body  of  men,  no  individual  man,  is  ever  trust¬ 
ed  with  unlimited  power  over  others,  but  he 
abuses  it  —  for  his  gain,  to  their  loss.  Such  is 
the  friction  in  all  social  machinery. 

None  of  these  three  types  anywhere  appears 
simple ;  all  governments  are  mixed.  The  most 
despotic  monarchy  is  partly  oligarchic,  for 
King  One  cannot  dispense  with  the  help  of  the 
superior  men,  and  if  some  of  these  be  wiser 
and  skilfuller  than  he,  ere  long  it  is  they  who 
govern,  while  he  only  reigns.  And  these  able 
men,  the  Pew,  cannot  prevent  the  automatic 
action  of  the  social  power  in  the  great  mass  of 
men,  who  will  instinctively,  nay,  who  must  of 
necessity,  walk  in  new  paths  of  their  own, 
spite  of  the  many  statute  roads  that  perplex  the 
land,  and  the  command  to  walk  in  them.  Thus 
do  the  Democratic  elements  sping  up,  wild 
flowers  of  humanity,  where  Oligarchs  and 
Kings  scattered  only  the  privileged  seed,  col¬ 
lected  by  authority  out  of  the  court-house,  and 
appointed  to  be  sown  in  gardens. 

So,  on  the  other  side,  the  most  Democratic 
form  of  government  will  contain  oligarchic  and 
monarchic  elements.  The  Democracy  cannot 
enfeeble  the  powerful  man,  strong  by  nature, 
no  position  can  make  him  weak  ;  he  will  rule 
men  just  in  proportion  to  his  power,  and  if 
wicked  also,  will  rule  them  for  his  apparent 
gain  and  to  their  real  loss.  So  companies  of 
rich  men,  powerful  by  money,  or  of  educated 
men,  powerful  by  knowledge,  will  do  much  to 
ontrol  the  majority  who  have  only  their  naked 
lumbers  to  rely  on, — must  be  counted,  and 
not  also  weighed.  If  they  likewise  are  wicked 
men,  or  but  commonly  selfish,  they  will  sway 
the  people  with  an  oligarchic  misrule.  Thus, 
even  in  the  national  field  “  an  enemy/’— so  men 
call  -what  they  do  not  comprehend,— is  contin¬ 
ually  sowing  these  tares  among  the  'wheat, 
which,  though  they  suck  the  ground  and  check 
the  grain,  must  yet  not  be  pulled  up,  lest  worse 
ill  fall  out  thereby. 

Let  not  names  deceive  us :  all  monarchies 


have  spots  which  are  like  democracies ;  and 
popular  governments  have  institutions,  at 
least  practices,  which  are  oligarchic,  and  even 
despotical.  There  are  many  points  of  resem¬ 
blance  between  the  Turkish  Despotism,  the 
most  rearward  government  in  Europe,  and 
our  own  Democracy,  which  we  think  the  fore¬ 
most  in  the  world.  Still,  not  misled  by  names, 
define  the  governments  by  their  centre,  where 
they  are  most  distinct  and  faithful  to  their 
idea,  not  by  their  circumference,  where  they 
meet  and  blend,  and  you  find  these  three  —  the 
One-Man  Power,  the  Pew-Men  Power,  the  All- 
Men  Power, — government  for  the  sake  of  one,  of 
a  few,  or  of  all.  At  present,  no  one  of  these  has 
combined  the  separate  excellences  of  all  the  rest. 

Now,  man  is  a  Progressive  Being.  This  is 
true  of  the  Individual,  who  reaches  his  earthen 
limit  of  attainment  in  a  short  life,  and  dies  ;  it 
is  also  true  of  mankind,  which  never  dies,  nor 
reaches  that  limit  of  attainment.  You  and  I 
start  as  babies,  and  grow  up  to  manhood  ; — 
Mankind  starts  from  naked,  ignorant  wildness 
—  the  babyhood  of  the  human  race  —  and 
grows  up  till  the  hindmost  nations  are  what  we 
hear  of  in  New  Holland  and  Patagonia,  while 
the  foremost  are  -what  we  see  in  Boston,  Lon¬ 
don,  Paris,  Berlin,  Vienna,  Rome.  The  whole 
of  human  History  is  evidence  of  this  Progress. 
But  even  now,  it  depends  chiefly  on  the  auto¬ 
matic  actions  of  mankind  ;  once  it  was  control¬ 
led  entirely  by  them.  It  was  an  instinct,  not  a 
will,  a  thought,  or  even  a  conscious  wish.  Man 
was  progressive,  as  the  beaver  was  constructive, 
and  the  squirrel  acquisitive.  As  you  and  I 
grow  up  from  babyhood,  and,  though  we  take 
no  thought,  yet  add  whole  cubits  to  our  stature, 
so  has  Mankind  made  progress  from  wildness 
to  the  enlightened  condition  of  the  foremost 
people  to-day. 

This  Progress  of  Mankind  may  be  thus 
summed  up.  It  consists  of  three  things  : 

I.  The  development  of  Personal  powers  in 
the  Individual  man — the  ultimate  atom  of 
society. 

II.  The  development  of  Social  powers  in 
the  gregarious  mass.  This  is  done  by  combin- 
ing  men  into  companies: — first,  there  is  the 
binary  union  of  Him  and  Her,  and  at  length 
the  multitudinous  compounding  of  four  hun¬ 
dred  millions,  despotically  welded  into  a  Chin 
ese  empire,  —  which  is  a  stiff,  unwieldly  bar  of 
iron  ;  or  of  thirty-two  sovereign  States,  feder- 
atively  connected  into  one  American  Com- 


✓ 


6 


monwealth  —  which  is  a  chain  of  many  links, 
alike  flexible  and  strong.  To  develop  these 
powers  of  Society,  there  must  be  National 
Unity  of  Action  —  the  whole  mass  working  as 
a  well-harnessed  team  of  men  ;  and  also  Indi¬ 
vidual  Variety  of  Action — each  man  enjoying 
his  own  personal  freedom  of  nature. 

III.  The  acquisition  of  Power  over  the 
material  world,  which  comes  as  a  consequence 
of  this  personal  and  social  development.  This 
Power  appears  in  two  forms. 

(1.)  That  of  Science;  which  is  ability  to 
know  the  forces  of  Nature  in  their  present 
and  past  condition,  and  to  foretell  their  future 
condition. 

(2.)  That  of  Art ;  which  is  ability  to  control 
the  forces  of  Nature,  and  make  them  produc¬ 
tive  of  Use  and  Beauty  for  our  own  purposes. 

This  Progress  is  generic  of  Mankind  —  not 
an  exceptional,  but  an  instantial  fact.  The 
Human  Race,  taken  as  a  whole,  never  goes 
back,  never  stands  still.  But  yet,  this  advance 
of  Mankind  has  hitherto  depended  mainly  on 
the  automatic  forces  of  Human  Nature  ;  it  has 
been  and  still  is  directed  less  by  the  foresight 
of  man  than  the  Providence  of  God  acting 
through  the  great  instincts  of  individual  im¬ 
provement  and  social  progress.  Mankind 
could  not  prevent  it ;  no  more  than  all  the 
babies  in  Boston  could  prevent  themselves 
from  growing  up  to  manhood.  But  while  this 
progress  is  continual  in  Mankind,  dependent 
on  organic  causes  which  are  out  of  our  reach, 
there  are  yet  fluctuations  in  individual  men, 
and  in  particular  nations,  that  stand  still,  or 
even  go  back.  All  round  us  there  are  good 
men  who  come  to  their  growth,  and  stop  there, 
then  decline,  next  die ;  it  is  the  course  of 
nature.  But  there  are  likewise  evil  men,  who 
by  their  vice  debar  themselves  from  natural 
and  healthy  growth,  and  perish  immaturely 
old,  and  die  not  half  grown.  The  same  is  true 
of  States.  I  do  not  know  that  any  nation  has 
died  a  natural  death  of  old  age.  Many  adopt 
evil  forms  of  government,  with  such  ecclesias¬ 
tical,  political,  social  and  domestic  institutions 
as  prevent  them 'from  advancing,  force  them  to 
stand  still,  and  so  to  perish.  Here  I  notice 
two  things. 

I.  In  all  progressive  nations  there  is  a  con¬ 
tinual  bettering  both  of  the  Form  and  the  Sub¬ 
stance  of  Government. 

1.  In  its  Form.  The  Monarchy  tends  to 
Oligarchy,  the  Oligarchy  to  Democracy. 
There  is  a  popularization  of  Government,  a 


progressive  diffusion  of  power.  Centralization 
yields  to  local  Self-Government.  This  im¬ 
provement  may  go  on  by  that  regular  slope 
we  call  Development,  —  where  the  continuity 
of  historic  action  never  seems  to  be  broke ;  or 
by  those  irregular  stairs  we  name  Revolution, 
which  seems  to  interrupt  the  historic  continuity 
of  action,  though  it  does  not. 

2.  In  its  Substance.  There  is  a  moraliza- 
tion  of  Government ;  statutes  and  customs 
conform  more ’to  the  Constitution  of  the  Uni¬ 
verse  ;  the  roads  laid  out  and  the  paths  wralked 
in,  come  nearer  to  an  arc  of  that  great  circle 
which  is  the  shortest  distance  between  two 
points  on  the  human  sphere  ;  the  natural  Rule 
of  Right  becomes  the  Rule  of  Conduct,  and 
secures  Justice,  which  is  the  interest  of  each 
and  of  all,  the  point  common  to  me  and  man¬ 
kind,  to  men  and  God. 

This  change  is  noticeable  in  all  progressive 
nations,  just  as  clearly  as  the  swelling  of  buds, 
the  opening  of  flowers,  and  the  shooting  forth 
of  leaves,  are  distinctive  of  spring. 

II.  In  a  regressive  or  a  stationary  people, 
the  opposite  takes  place  ;  there  is  a  continuous 
worsening  of  institutions. 

1.  There  is  a  change  in  the  Form  of  Gov¬ 
ernment,  —  Democracy  tends  to  Oligarchy, 
that  to  Monarchy  ;  local  self-government  yields 
to  centralization ;  political  power  is  monopo¬ 
lized  ;  Government  by  All  shrinks  to  Govern¬ 
ment  by  a  Few,  that  to  Government  by  One. 

2.  The  change  in  the  Substance  is  of  the 
same  sort.  Statutes  and  customs  conform  less 
to  natural  Justice;  the  Rule  of  Violence  be¬ 
comes  the  Rule  of  Conduct 

This  change  is  noticeable  in  all  decaying 
nations.  It  is  like  the  fall  of  the  leaf  and  the 
tightening  of  the  bark  when  winter  sets  severe- 

O  O 

ly  in. 

At  this  day,  the  Caucasians  are  the  most 
progressive  people  on  earth.  Their  most  ad¬ 
vanced  and  advancing  nations  are  the  Celtic- 
French,  who  have  made  vast  strides  within  a 
hundred  years,  and  though  now  checked  in  the 
march,  they  will  not  stop  long;  and  the  vari¬ 
ous  Teutonic  people.  Among  the  latter,  the 
English  and  Americans  are  types  of  progress, 
representative  nations.  Not  only  have  they 
the  Instinct  of  Progress,  and  advance  by  their 
automatic  action ;  but  also  the  Idea,  and  im¬ 
prove  by  their  conscious  Will.  They  look 
forward  to  the  end,  and  devise  means  to  help 
them  thitherward.  No  where  has  there  been 
[  such  advance  in  two  hundred  and  fifty  years. 


7 


Think  of  North  America  at  the  settlement  of 
Jamestown,  in  Virginia,  in  1608;  and  of  the 
United  States  at  the  settlement  of  Sumner,  in 
Kansas,  in  1858  !  What  growth  of  numbers,  of 
wealth;  what  improvement  of  Institutions  — 
ecclesiastical,  political,  social,  domestic  !  What 
instinct  of  progress  there  is  in  the  American 
People  !  What  speculative  desire  for  it,  what 
resolute  will,  what  practical  action  ! 

We  have  the  foremost  form  of  Political  In¬ 
stitutions,  with  local  self-government  as  the 
Ideal  ;  we  take  that  for  the  equivalent  of 
Freedom,  while  centralized  government  by- 
others  Ave  look  on  as  the  same  with  Slavery. 

This  progress  appears  in  many  things  —  in 
Agriculture,  Mining,  Manufactures,  Com¬ 
merce —  the  four  grand  divisions  of  the  Busi¬ 
ness  world.  You  find  it  in  all  departments  of 
thought :  even  theology  is  amenable  to  im¬ 
provement  ;  Unitarians,  Universalists,  Spirit¬ 
ualists,  carry  on  the  historic  continuity  of 
development,  which  reaches  from  the  flight  of 
Moses  out  of  Egypt,  down  to  the  meeting  of 
this  Anti-Slavery  Convention. 

Since  this  century  began,  there  has  been  a 
great  progress  in  the  Political  Institutions  of 
all  the  Northern  States.  Constitutions  be¬ 
come  more  democratic ;  customs  and  statutes 
are  more  just ;  condensed,  vicarious  power  is 
broken  up  and  diffused  abroad  to  many  centres 
of  local  self-government.  This  progressive 
bettering  of  the  Form  and  Substance  of  such 
institutions  goes  on  with  accelerated  velocity. 

But  at  the  South,  you  do  not  meet  with  a 
similar  improvement ;  nay,  you  often  find  the 
opposite.  For  Slavery  has  there  a  permanent 
welcome.  That  shoot  from  the  Upas  tree  of 
foreign  barbarism  has  been  imported  and  nat¬ 
uralized  there ;  with  its  pernicious  shade  it 
hinders  the  growth  of  the  fair  plant  of  Liberty, 
once  set  even  in  that  soil.  What  was  once  a 
transient  exception  in  the  history  of  the  North, 
is  become  a  typical  institution  there ;  it  is  a 
guide-board  instance,  pointing  to  the  central 
peculiarity  of  the  South.  Under  her  control, 
the  Federal  Government  also  retrogrades  in 
the  same  way,  through  the  influence  of  the  same 
exceptional  cause.  From  the  latter,  I  select 
three  examples. 

1.  In  1793,  the  Federal  Government  took 
slavery  under  its  special  protection,  passed  the 
first  Fugitive  Slave  Law,  according  to  Proper¬ 
ty  in  Men  a  guaranty  it  never  gave  to  Prop¬ 
erty  in  Land  or  Things.  Here  it  violated 
both  the  natural  and  the  constitutional  rights 
of  the  individual  States,  and  adopted  a  vicious 


centralization  of  the  most  dangerous  charac¬ 
ter.  In  1836,  the  Supreme  Court,  —  which  is 
also  the  purchased  creature  of  the  Slave  Pow¬ 
er,  —  in  the  Prigg  case,  decided  that  the  indi¬ 
vidual  States  had  neither  duties  nor  rights  in 
this  matter;  but  the  United  States  might  kid¬ 
nap  a  runaway  on  any  free  soil  of  the  individ¬ 
ual  States.  In  1850,  by  the  new  Fugitive 
Slave  Bill,  the  means  of  kidnapping  were 
provided  at  the  expense  of  the  General  Gov¬ 
ernment,  and  man-stealing  was  made  easy. 
In  1857,  in  the  Drcd  Scott  case,  the  Supreme 
Court  decided  that  a  colored  man  had  no 
rights  which  the  people  were  bound  to  respect, 
for  he  was  not  a  citizen  of  the  United  States, 
—  of  course,  he  could  not  receive  a  passport 
enabling  him  to  travel  on  the  European  conti¬ 
nent,  nor  command  a  merchant  vessel,  nor 
claim  a  citizen’s  bounty  in  the  fishery,  nor  pre¬ 
empt  a  quarter  section  of  the  public  land,  nor 
exercise  any  of  the  other  rights  of  citizenship  ; 
yet  is  he  made  amenable  to  all  the  laws  whereof 
he  is  thus  habitually  put  to  the  ban.  Two  Judges 
dissented  from  this  iniquitous  decision  as  false 
in  history  as  unjust  in  law,  —  Mr.  McLean  of 
Ohio,  Mr.  Curtis  of  Massachusetts  :  —  it  gives 
me  great  pleasure  to  mention  and  extol  his 
manly  conduct  then  !  This  is  the  first  ex¬ 
ample — what  a  striding  backward  in  five  and 
sixty  years ! 

2.  The  Federal  Government  has  taken 
special  pains  to  acquire  new  territory,  and 
put  this  exceptional  institution  in  it.  Look  at 
Louisiana,  and  the  other  States  made  out  of 
the  territory  acquired  from  France;  look  at 
Florida,  at  Texas,  Utah,  New  Mexico,  Arizo- 
nia !  What  pains  does  the  Government  take 
to  spread  Slavery!  That  is  the  second  ex¬ 
ample. 

3.  It  assumes  that  Slavery  is  not  only  con¬ 
sistent  with  the  nature  of  a  Republic,  but  is 
favorable  for  its  development.  The  Slave 
Power  controls  the  Government,  and  continu¬ 
ally  declares  that  “  free  society  is  a  failure  ; n 
that  “  Slavery  is  indispensable  to  a  Republic.” 
If  the  present  and  the  past  Administration,  — 
I  mean,  the  Presidential  and  Senatorial  Exe¬ 
cutive,  with  their  manifold  subordinates,  —  are 
not  personally  of  that  opinion,  they  yet  are 
officially,  for  all  their  acts  look  that  way.  Wit¬ 
ness  the  attempt  to  force  slavery  into  Kansas, 
whose  whole  brief  life  has  been  the  history  of 
violent  attempts  to  inoculate  her  with  that  dis¬ 
ease  which  even  in  their  youth  makes  Virginia 
and  the  Carolinas  decrepit  —  hindering  their 
increase  in  men,  their  acquisition  of  things, 


8 


and  degrading  their  intellectual  and  moral  char¬ 
acter.  So  important  does  the  present  Admin¬ 
istration  think  Slavery  for  political  welfare, 
that  it  not  only  allows  Kansas,  with  but 
50,000  inhabitants,  to  come  into  the  Union  as 
a  Slave  State  now,  but  offers  her  enormous 
bribes  if  she  will  thus  defile  her  maiden  honor; 
while,  if  she  insists  on  being  a  Free  State,  then 
shall  she  have  no  dowry  at  all,  and  shall  not 
enter  the  national  family  until  she  has  93,000 
inhabitants,  in  1860,  or  1864! 

These  are  but  three  examples  ;  I  could  count 
many  more.  All  this  wickedness  comes  from 
the  adoption  of  Slavery  by  the  Federal  Gov¬ 
ernment.  Had  it  done  nothing  at  all  about 
the  matter —  taken  sides  with  neither  Freedom 
nor  Slavery  —  how  different  had  the  nation 
now  been !  What  if  the  Government  had 
sided  with  Freedom  !  What  a  nation  should 
wre  have  become  !  What  population,  what  in¬ 
dustry  —  Agriculture,  Mining,  Manufactures, 
Commerce  —  should  we  see  in  the  Southern 
States  themselves !  what  intelligence,  what 
morality  ! 

But,  strange  as  it  may  seem,  the  Constitu¬ 
tion  of  the  nation  contains  these  words  :  — 
'■  The  United  States  shall  guarantee  to  every 
State  in  this  Union  a  Republican  form  of  Gov¬ 
ernment.”  (Art.  IY.  sec.  4.) 

These  are  not  words  of  idle  ceremony ;  “  they 
are  plain  without  any  scruple,  and  absolute 
without  any  saving;”  “prudent  antiquity  in¬ 
cluded  much  matter  in  few  words.”  The  only 
pretended  ambiguity  is  in  the  words,  “  Repub¬ 
lican  form  of  Government.”  What  do  they 
mean  ?  Is  Slaver}7  consistent  with  a  “  Repub¬ 
lican  form  of  Government,”  in  the  constitu¬ 
tional  sense  of  the  phrase  ?  If  so,  then  it  may 
spread  every  where,  and  include  not  only  black 
men,  but  also  red  men,  brown  men,  yellow 
men,  and  white  men  —  for  the  color  is  but  an 
accident  of  the  skin,  affecting  the  substance  of 
no  man’s  nature.  Nay,  it  may  include  the 
Majority  of  the  People  —  all  except  a  few 
masters  numerous  enough  to  hold  the  rest! 
But  if  £S  a  Republican  form  of  Government” 
be  hostile  to  slavery,  then,  peaceably  or  forci¬ 
bly,  slavery  must  go  down  and  perish  utterly 
out  of  every  “  State  in  this  Union.”  The 
question  must  now  be  decided,  actually  and 
presently  through  custom,  or  prospectively  by 
statute. 

It  is  the  People  who  are  to  determine  what 
the  words  mean ;  —  the  Legislative,  Judiciary 
and  Executive,  are  but  attorneys,  having  only 


delegated  and  limited  powers  ;  while  the  Peo¬ 
ple  are  the  Pi-oprietors  and  Sovereigns,  with 
Eminent  Domain  over  the  premises  of  their 
vassals.  The  opinion  of  these  attorneys  is  but 
advisory  and  provisional,  while  the  decision 
of  the  majority  of  the  People  is  declaratory 
and  final. 

Here,  then,  come  three  questions  —  ( 1 )  What 
is  Slavery?  (2)  What  is  a  Republican  form  of 
Government,  in  the  constitutional  sense?  (3) 
Is  Slavery  compatible  with  a  Republican  form 
of  Government  ?  Let  me  say  a  word  on  each 
of  the  three.  The  first  two  are  questions  of 
definition,  the  last  of  comparison. 

I.  What  is  Slavery  ?  I  define  it  by  its  es¬ 
sence —  Slavery  is  Property  in  Man.  I  make 
Dinah  my  slave.  She  is  my  property  —  her  sub¬ 
stance  becomes  my  accident.  She  is  no  longer 
to  be  counted  a  person,  with  free  spiritual  or 
bodily  individuality ;  she  is  a  thing — ■“  a  chattel, 
to  all  intents,  uses  and  purposes  whatsoever.” 
Slavery  is  a  condition  contrary  to  Natural  Right. 

II.  What  is  a  “  Republican  form  of  Gov¬ 
ernment  ?  ”  Here  the  dictionaries  will  not 
help  us,  neither  will  the  private  opinions  of 
distinguished  men  living  at  the  time  the  Con¬ 
stitution  was  made;  for  it  is  notorious  that 
such  men  as  Fi*anklin,  Jefferson,  the  two 
Adamses,  Washington,  Madison,  and  others, 
differed  very  widely  on  this  Ideal  Government, 
indicated  and  guaranteed  by  these  words.  The 
common  rules  of  interpretation  are  well  known, 
and  must  serve  us  in  this  as  in  all  other  cases. 
We  are  to  look  at  the  Constitution  itself,  to 
interpret  its  words  by  reference  to  the  Purpose 
which  the  People  had  in  view  in  making  it, 
and  the  Principles  set  forth  in  any  other  docu¬ 
ment  of  like  nature  coming  from  the  People. 
The  interpretation  of  this  clause  requires  only 
good  sense,  good  faith,  good  heed,  good  judg¬ 
ment  ;  there  is  nothing  mysterious  in  the 
matter. 

I  shall  seek  the  means  of  definition  in  two 
documents  which  are  the  work  of  the  People 
of  the  United  States,  namely:  in  the  Consti¬ 
tution  itself,  which  is  professedly  and  on  its 
face  the  act  and  deed  of  “  the  People  of  the 
United  States,”  and  in  the  Declaration  of  In¬ 
dependence,  which  is  equally  their  free  act  and 
deed,  though  not  set  forth  and  published  as 
such  in  the  same  manner  and  form  :  the  Rev¬ 
olutionary  War  is  the  People’s  Vote  for  ac¬ 
cepting  the  Declaration.  I  think  these  two 
papers  are  the  act  of  the  People  of  the  United 


9 


States  as  no  other  in  our  history.  Now,  the 
meaning  of  the  words  “  Republican  form  of 
Government  ”  is  to  be  sought  in  the  Constitu¬ 
tion  itself,  though  it  occurs  therein  but  once  ; 
the  Declaration  affords  light  to  read  the  Con¬ 
stitution  by,  and  as  that  is  the  older,  let  us  look 
at  it  first,  and  then  at  the  Constitution. 

i.  The  Declaration  of  Independence  is  the 
National  Programme  of  Political  Prin¬ 
ciples,  solemnly  prepared  and  published  by 
the  Delegates,  and  subsequently  adopted  by 
the  People  themselves,  as  their  Rule  of  Con¬ 
duct  in  separating  from  the  mother  country, 
and  organizing  their  own  voluntary  and 
automatic  powers  into  a  new  form  of  Govern¬ 
ment,  and  constructing  its  institutions.  It  is 
solemnly  read  on  all  celebrations  of  Indepen¬ 
dence  in  the  Northern  States,  formerly  in  all 
the  States.  You  all  know  the  words;  here 
are  the  principles,  which,  for  convenience,  I 
put  into  a  philosophic  form. 

1.  All  men  have  certain  natural  and  essen¬ 
tial  Rights  ;  among  them,  the  right  to  Life, 
Liberty  and  the  Pursuit  of  Happiness. 

2.  These  Rights  are  unalienable,  except  by 
the  misconduct  and  crime  of  the  possessor 
thereof.  One  man  cannot  alienate  another's 
rights. 

3.  In  respect  to  these  natural  and  unalien¬ 
able  Rights,  all  men  are  equal ;  with  the  rich, 
the  educated,  men  of  famous  family,  these 
rights  are  not  quantitatively  greater,  or  qualita¬ 
tively  more  nice,  than  with  the  poor,  the  igno¬ 
rant,  and  men  born  in  the  humblest  place. 

4.  Governments  are  instituted  to  secure 
these  natural,  unalienable  and  equal  Rights  to 
all  men. 

5.  These  Governments  derive  all  their  just 
powers  from  the  consent  of  the  governed,  that 
is,  from  the  Majority  of  the  Inhabitants  ;  and 
accordingly,  when  the  government  does  not 
secure  them  the  enjoyment  thereof,  it  is  the 
right  of  the  People  to  alter  or  abolish  it. 

In  this  Programme  of  constructive  Revolu¬ 
tion.  the  great  charter  of  American  Law,  these 
Principles  are  not  referred  back  to  any  grant 
from  Parliament  or  King,  to  any  Statute  Law, 
nor  rested  on  the  foundation  of  any  Customs 
among  men,  or  inductive  reasoning  of  philos¬ 
ophers.  They  are  founded  not  on  Facts  of 
Observation  in  Human  History,  but  on  Facts 
of  Consciousness  in  human  Nature  itself.  Our 
fathers  said  —  “  We  hold  these  truths  to  be 
self-evident.'’  Young  Mr.  Jefferson  fur¬ 
nished  the  popular  words,  but  the  Ideas  were 
of  New  England,  and  had  been  passed  upon 


in  the  town  meetings  of  Boston,  and  other 
little  villages  in  Massachusetts,  whence  Frank¬ 
lin  and  the  two  noble  Adamses  took  and  in¬ 
spired  them  into  the  democratic  young  man 
from  Virginia.  New  and  strange  to  the 
world,  where  they  were  to  have  a  great  future, 
they  were  familiar  to  New  England,  where  even 
then  they  had  also  a  history. 

That  is  the  first  witness  for  definition  :  such 
his  testimony.  If  the  People  were  to  establish 
such  a  government  as  would  represent  the 
sense  of  that  document,  a  “  Republican  form 
of  Government"  must  be  one  which  in  sub¬ 
stance  secures  to  all  men  their  natural,  una¬ 
lienable  and  equal  right  to  life,  liberty,  and  the 
pursuit  of  happiness,  and  in  form  has  the  con¬ 
sent  of  the  governed. 

ii.  The  next  source  is  the  Constitution 
of  the  United  States  itself.  During  the  war 
a  Confederacy  was  made,  intended  to  be 
provisional ;  but  when  the  Revolution  was 
complete,  something  more  lasting  was  needed. 
Institutions  must  be  invented,  organized  and 
administered,  which  should  apply  the  Principles 
of  the  Declaration  to  actual  work,  and  incor¬ 
porate  them  into  the  political  life  of  the  Peo¬ 
ple.  This  could  not  be  done  directly  by  ail 
the  People;  it  must  be  by  a  few — the  servants 
of  the  People.  So  a  scheme  of  Institutions 
must  be  prepared.  For  that  purpose,  dele¬ 
gates  were  appointed  in  all  the  States,  and  a 
Convention  held.  They  made  “  the  Constitu¬ 
tion,"  and  proposed  it  to  the  People,  who  ac¬ 
cepted  it  by  rather  a  small  majority  of  the 
popular  vote.  The  servants  who  wrought  it 
out  confessed  that  it  had  great  defects.  Such 
was  the  opinion  of  Franklin,  the  ablest  man 
in  America — of  Washington,  the  next  most 
distinguished:  many  leading  men  in  the  indi¬ 
vidual  States,  who  voted  for  its  acceptance,  dis¬ 
liked  many  things  in  it.  Such  was  the  case 
with  Samuel  Adams  and  John  Hancock,  then 
the  two  most  influential  men  in  Massachusetts. 
But  it  was  accepted  as  “  good  for  the  present 
distress."  There  is  much  foolish  and  hypo¬ 
critical  talk  now  about  the  “  sacred  ness  of  the 
Constitution,"  which  would  sound  a  little  con¬ 
temptible  to  Hancock  and  Adams,  to  Wash¬ 
ington  and  Franklin. 

The  Constitution  is  a  Power  of  Attor¬ 
ney,  by  which  the  People  of  the  United 
States,  authorize  their  servants  to  do  certain 
matters  and  things  pertaining  to  the  govern¬ 
ment  of  America — that  is,  to  invent,  organize 
and  administer  such  Institutions  as  shall  in¬ 
troduce  the  Principles  of  the  Declaration  into 


10 


the  actual  political  life  of  the  People.  All 
officers  of  the  United  States  are  sworn  to  keep 
the  Constitution  —  i.  e.,  to  conform  to  that 
Power  of  Attorney,  to  do  what  it  commands — 
of  course,  the  agents  of  the  People  have  no 
official  authority,  except  what  they  receive 
under  that  Power  of  Attorney. 

Now,  this  Power  of  Attorney  contains  two 
parts:  (1,)  The  Preamble,  and,  (2,)  the  Pur¬ 
view,  the  Seven  Articles  making  up  the  body 
of  the  document. 

1.  The  Preamble  is  a  Programme  of  Pur¬ 
poses,  telling  the  People’s  agents  what  matters 
and  things  they  are  authorized  and  instructed 
to  do.  Commonly  the  preamble  to  a  statute 
merely  recites  the  historical  .occasion  of  that 
enactment ;  but  the  preamble  to  this  solemn  act 
of  the  whole  People  is  quite  different  —  it  de¬ 
clares  the  Motive,  the  Anivius  propter  quern ,  and 
the  Purpose,  the  Finem  usque  ad  quevi.  These 
are  the  words :  “  To  form  a  more  perfect  Union, 
establish  Justice,  ensure  domestic  Tranquillity, 
provide  for  the  common  Defence,  promote  the 
general  Welfare,  and  secure  the  blessings  of 
Liberty  to  ourselves  and  our  Posterity. 

•>  w 

These  are  the  things  to  be  done.  Nothing 
else  is  commanded  or  even  permitted ;  and  it 
is  elsewhere  expressly  declared  that  “  the  pow¬ 
ers  not  delegated  to  the  United  States  by  the 
Constitution,  nor  prohibited  by  it  to  the  States, 
are  secured  to  the  States  respectively,  or  to  the 
Peopled  (Amendment,  Art.  X  )  And  again  : 
“  The  enumeration  in  the  Constitution  of  cer¬ 
tain  rights  shall  not  be  construed  to  deny  or 
disparage  others  retained  by  the  People.” 
(Amendment,  Art.  IX.) 

This  Programme  of  Purposes  is  unitary,  in 
harmony  with  itself :  and  also  consistent 
with  the  Programme  of  Principles  in  the  Dec¬ 
laration. 

2.  The  Seven  Articles  are  a  Programme 
of  Means  for  the  attainment  of  the  Purposes 
and  the  carrying  out  of  the  Principles  mention¬ 
ed  before.  These  are  not  unitary.  Some  of 
them  conflict  with  each  other,  some  with  the 
Principles  and  Purposes:  but,  in  the  great 
majority  of  cases,  the  means  are  in  harmony 
with  the  ends  proposed  before.  The  others 
were  exceptional — some  of  them  were  felt  to 
be  so  at  the  time  of  making  or  adopting  the 
Constitution,  and  hence  the  opposition  to  it  in 
both  the  national  and  the  State  Conventions. 
But,  to  make  clear  that  the  natural  and  essen¬ 
tial  Rights  of  Man  are  to  be  carefully  respected, 
to  guard  the  Rights  of  all  men,  the  Constitution, 
in  one  most  important  particular,  secures  to  the 


United  States  a  Right  and  imposes  on  them  a 
Duty  to  watch  over  the  institutions  of  the  in¬ 
dividual  States,  and  guarantee  to  each  of  them 
“  a  Republican  form  of  Government.”  What 
do  these  words  mean,  in  this  place  ?  Certainly 
they  guarantee  to  each  State  such  a  Govern¬ 
ment  as  will  accomplish  the  Purpose  for  which 
the  People  made  the  Constitution;  and,  of 
course,  one  which  embodies  and  carries  out  the 
Principles  that  the  Revolution  was  fought  to 
secure.  It  must  be  a  Government  which  tends 
to  form  “  a  more  perfect  Union  ”  amongst  all 
the  People;  to  “establish  Justice”  for  each 
person;  to  “insure  domestic  Tranquillity”  every 
where  in  the  land ;  to  “  provide  for  the  common 
Defence”  of  the  natural  rights  of  all  men  there¬ 
in  ;  to  “  promote  the  general  Welfare  ”  of  all, 
the  enjoyment  “of  life,  liberty,  and  the  pursuit 
of  happiness;”  and  “secure  the  blessings  of 
Liberty  to  ourselves  and  our  Posterity.”  It  is 
clear  the  People  contemplate  the  establishment 
of  such  a  Government,  and  nothing  less.  Words 
cannot  make  it  more  clear. 

III.  Now,  compare  Slavery  and  a  Republi¬ 
can  Form  of  Government.  Slavery  denies  the 
slave  all  his  natural  rights ;  so  it  is  the  abnega- 
tionof  the  self-evident  Truths  of  the  Programme 
of  Principles.  It  tends  to  destroy  Union 
among  the  people  ;  to  establish  Injustice  ;  to 
prevent  domestic  Tranquillity ;  to  hinder  the 
common  Defence;  to  disturb  the  General  Wel¬ 
fare,  and  to  annihilate  the  Blessings  of  Liberty, 
just  so  far  as  it  extends  :  so  it  is  the  nullifica¬ 
tion  of  the  Ends  proposed  in  the  Programme 
of  Purposes.  Not  only  is  Slavery  inconsistent 
with  a  Republican  form  of  Government,  in 
the  constitutional  sense  of  the  word,  it  is  so 
utterly  hostile  thereto  that  the  two  cannot  live 
together,  but  one  must  ultimately  destroy  the 
other. 

Yet  when  the  Constitution  was  adopted, 
almost  all  the  States  had  slavery  within  their 
borders  ;  some  of  the  men  who  set  their  names 
to  the  paper  were  themselves  slaveholders. 
But  these  facts  do  not  alter  the  meaning  of  the 
words,  or  their  power ;  for  we  are  not  concerned 
with  the  opinions,  or  even  the  intentions  of 
those  men,  but  only  with  the  opinions  and  in¬ 
tentions  of  the  People  of  the  United  States,  as 
expressed  in  the  words  of  that  document.  The 
delegates  in  the  Federal  Convention  which 
drafted  the  Constitution  were  simply  the  scriv¬ 
eners  of  the  People,  to  draw  up  this  Power  of 
Attorney ;  the  delegates  to  the  State  Conven¬ 
tions  were  but  the  agents  to  examine  it,  and 


11 


give  the  People's  assent  thereto,  or  withhold  it 
therefrom.  The  ultimate  authority  is  the  Peo¬ 
ple  of  the  United  States.  I  know  no  act  of 
theirs,  at  that  time,  which  intimates  an  inten¬ 
tion  to  keep  slavery;  or  hints  that  they  thought 
it  consistent  with  the  Principles  of  the  Decla¬ 
ration,  with  the  Purposes  of  the  Constitution  ; 
or  which  wrests  the  words  “  Republican  form 
of  Government  "  from  their  plain  and  natural 
sense  in  the  Constitution. 

Some  years  ago,  the  Legislature  of  Massa¬ 
chusetts  made  a  law  forbidding  lotteries  in  the 
State.  Many  of  the  delegates  who  supported 
the  measure  had  lottery  tickets  in  their  pockets 
at  the  moment  of  voting.  Does  that  fact  alter 
the  meaning  of  the  statute  ?  A  Massachusetts 
Legislature  prohibited  the  sale  of  liquor  in  the 
State  except  for  certain  specified  purposes,  and 
in  a  manner  provided  for.  Some  of  the  men 
who  voted  for  the  liquor  law  daily  used  intoxi¬ 
cating  drinks ;  others  rented  their  shops  for  the 
sale  their  vote  made  illegal ;  the  law  has  never 
been  enforced  in  Boston,  the  capital  of  the 
State, — nay,  the  traffic  has  been  more  open  and 
more  extensive  ever  since.  But  do  these  facts 
alter  the  intention  of  the  Legislature,  and  con¬ 
trol  the  words  of  the  statute  ? 

It  is  now  well  known  that  many  of  the  lead¬ 
ing  men  in  the  Conventions,  Federal  as  well 
as  State,  were  hostile  to  slavery.  I  need  only 
mention  Franklin,  Washington,  Madison,  Sam¬ 
uel  Adams  and  John  Hancock.  What  is  still 
more  important,  it  was  the  general  opinion  of 
the  People,  that  Slavery  would  soon  end  if  let 
alone,  and  that  it  would  be  better  not  to  kill  it 
violently  at  once  by  direct  blows,  but  to  let  it 
die  of  the  incurable  disease  then  supposed  to  be 
eating  its  vitals  out.  So  they  let  it  remain  in 
the  States,  though  the  Principles  of  the  Dec¬ 
laration,  the  Purposes  of  the  Constitution,  and 
the  Guaranty  of  a  Republican  form  of  Govern¬ 
ment  were  all  hostile  to  it.  The  Northern 
States  one  by  one  removed  this  shameful  ex¬ 
ception  from  their  institutions.  Washington, 
Jefferson,  Madison,  acted  with  their  party,  and 
from  time  to  time  did  deeds  inconsistent  with 
these  Principles  and  Purposes,  but  their  per¬ 
sonal  convictions  still  remained  unaltered. 
When  Madison  and  Jefferson  read  this  clause 
in  the  preamble  of  the  Constitution,  “  to  secure 
the  blessings  of  liberty  to  ourselves  and  our  Pos¬ 
terity,”  do  you  believe  they  limited  its  applica¬ 
tion  to  white  men,  —  to  their  posterity  born  free  ? 
They  expected  that  slavery  would  soon  end  in 
all  the  States,  and  while  for  the  moment  they 


tolerated  it  as  a  Measure  of  convenience  or  ne¬ 
cessity,  which  either  they  would  not  or  else 
could  not  then  escape  from,  they  yet  denied  it 
as  a  Principle  of  public  policy  and  morals,  and 
provided  a  clause  in  the  body  of  the  Constitu¬ 
tion  which  would  ultimately  destroy  it,  and  that 
without  amending  the  Constitution  itself. 

But  it  is  the  words  of  the  document  we  are 
to  consider,  not  the  opinions  of  contempora¬ 
ries,  or  the  conduct  of  individuals,  parties, 
States,  or  the  nation  itself.  It  often  happens 
that  a  false  interpretation  of  a  statute  prevails 
for  a  long  time.  James  I.  knew  this,  and  said, 
uLet  me  make  the  judges,  and  I  care  not  who 
makes  the  laws.”  The  South  knows  it  as 
well,  and  as  wickedly  acts  thereon.  In  1628, 
the  British  Parliament  enacted  the  great  Peti¬ 
tion  of  Right  to  deprive  the  King  of  the  power 
of  imprisoning  men  without  due  process  of 
law.  Charles  I.  asked  the  judges  if  that  would 
prevent  him  from  clapping  in  jail  whom  he 
would,  without  showing  cause  for  it.  Judge 
Hyde  answered  —  u  Every  law  ....  hath  its 
exposition,  which  is  to  be  left  to  the  courts  of 
justice  to  determine  “there  is  no  fear  of  such 
a  conclusion  as  is  implied  in  the  question.” 
But  would  that  false  interpretation  by  wicked 
Judges  alter  the  plain  meaning  of  the  “  great 
Petition  of  Right  ?  ” 

The  Common  Law  of  England  did  not 
change  ;  under  it,  men  were  held  as  slaves  for 
centuries,  —  no  questions  asked ;  but  in  the 
Somerset  case,  Lord  Mansfield  fell  back  on  the 
Principles  of  English  Law,  on  the  Purpose  of 
English  Law,  and  declared  that  slaves  could 
not  breathe  in  England  —  so  it  had  been  said 
in  the  time  of  Queen  Elizabeth.  He  knew 
what  a  change  his  judgment  would  make  ;  that 
it  overturned  the  decision  of  many  judges,  the 
practice  of  centuries ;  but  he  said  “  Fiat  justi- 
tia,  ruat  coelum.”  Justice  teas  done,  and  the 
sky  has  not  caved  in  yet. 

Look  a  moment  more  at  this  Constitutional 
Guaranty.  It  is  often  said,  “  The  People  of 
the  United  States,  as  a  whole,  have  no  right  to 
meddle  with  the  local  institutions  of  any  special 
State:  "that  each  is  “  absolutely  sovereign." 
But,  then,  what  does  this  constitutional  guar¬ 
anty  mean?  Are  these  mere  words  of  cere¬ 
mony  ?  Nobody  can  believe  it.  “  They  are 
plain,  without  scruple ;  absolute,  without  any 
saving.”  Other  constitutional  provisions  also 
trench  upon  the  local  sovereignty  of  individual 
States,  and  were  wisely  objected  to  at  the  time 
of  framing  that  instrument.  The  Federal  Au- 


12 


thority  has  no  right  to  interfere  and  establish  a  j 
Monarchical  or  an  Aristocratic  Form  of  Gov-  i 
eminent,  but  it  is  its  constitutional  Duty  to  in-  j 
terfere  and  establish  a  Republican  form  of  Gov¬ 
ernment.  The  People  wisely  contemplated 
this  contingency  —  that  some  State  should  fail 
to  establish  such  institutions,  or  carry  out  the 
Principles  of  the  Declaration  and  the  Purposes 
of  the  Constitution ;  and  so  they  enacted  this 
very  clause,  to  meet  the  emergency  when  it 
should  happen.  The  words  are  no  more  a  cer¬ 
emony  than  those  which  declare  that  Congress 
shall  have  power  to  establish  a  bankrupt  law 
(Art.  I.,  sec.  viii.,  par.  4;)  or  to  punish  trea¬ 
son,  (Art.  III.,  sec.  iiii.,  par.  2.)  Nay,  this 
article  goes  further — for  it  imperatively  enjoins 
the  duty,  while  they  only  confer  the  power:  it 
says  —  “  The  United  States  shall  guarantee  to 
every  State  in  this  Union  a  Republican  form 
of  Government.'”  It  is  not  can ,  or  may,  but 
shall ,  not  the  word  of  permission,  but  of  com¬ 
mand  ! 

“A  Republican  form  of  Government,”  says 
another,  “  is  any  Form  of  Government  which 
a  sovereign  State  sees  fit  to  adopt.”  Let  us 
suppose,  then,  that  a  few  rich  and  educated 
men  in  the  State  of  Delaware  should  have 
their  Coup  d'  Etat,  destroy  their  present  insti¬ 
tutions,  and  establish  a  theocratic  despotism, 
with  an  absolute  Pope,  the  monarchy  heredi¬ 
tary  in  his  family,  his  children,  numerous  as 
those  of  a  Roman  Pontiff :  that  he  should  be 
the/sole  law-giver  in  the  little  State,  appointing 
all  the  local  officers,  and  likewise  the  one  Rep¬ 
resentative  and  the  two  Senators  in  Congress  ! 
— would  that  be  a  Republican  form  of  Govern¬ 
ment  ?  Would  Congress  allow  the  creatures 
of  this  American  Napoleon  the  Little  to  sit  in 
the  Capitol,  as  equals  of  the  Democrats  from 
Wisconsin,  New  York,  Ohio,  New  England  1 
Not  a  day !  Nay,  the  People  of  the  United 
States  would  soon  take  this  Delaware  Pope 
and  his  one-horse  concern  of  a  monarchy,  and 
pitch  them  into  the  sea,  and  establish  a  Repub¬ 
lican  form  of  Government  with  a  rough  hand  ! 
But  which,  think  you,  is  most  at  variance  with 
the  Principles  of  the  Declaration  and  the  Pur¬ 
poses  of  the  Constitution  —  a  despotic  Papacy, 
which  deprives  men  only  of  political  and  eccle¬ 
siastical  rights,  or  Slavery,  which  deprives  men 
of  all  rights — ecclesiastical,  political,  social, 
domestic,  individual  ? 

Make  the  case  still  more  plain.  There  are 
four  million  slaves  in  the  United  States.  Sup¬ 
pose  they  were  all  gathered  into  one  State,  Vir¬ 
ginia,  —  it  would  not  be  so  densely  populated 


as  the  State  of  New  York  is  now;  it  would 
have  only  about  a  third  as  many  to  the  square 
mile  as  Massachusetts.  Suppose  there  were 
only  free  men  enough  in  the  State  to  rule  the 
slaves, —  say  forty  thousand  :  suppose  they  all 
belonged  to  one  man,  Hon.  Mr.  Firstfamily, 
and  he  owned  all  the  real  property  in  the  State, 
made  all  the  laws,  and  appointed  his  two  Sen¬ 
ators  and  his  pack  of  Representatives  to  Con¬ 
gress  :  would  Virginia  have  a  Republican  form 
of  Government'?  Would  the  rest  of  the  na¬ 
tion  tolerate  that  state  of  things,  and  allow  one 
man  to  own  four  million  men,  and  claim  a 
proportionate  power  in  Congress'?  The  ab¬ 
surdity  is  evident  —  self-evident.  I  make  no 
words  on  that  matter. 

Suppose  those  four  million  slaves,  condensed 
into  that  one  State,  are  owned  by  two  men, 
does  that  alter  the  case  ?  Certainly  not  :  the 
difference  is  only  quantitative  —  not  in  kind, 
but  degree.  Suppose  they  are  all  owned  by 
2000  men,  20,000,  350,000  —  the  actual  num¬ 
ber  of  slaveholders  —  does  that  alter  the  case  ? 
Not  at  all ;  the  diffusion  of  ownership  makes 
no  odds  in  the  essence  of  ownership.  Certain¬ 
ly,  that  State  could  not  have  a  Republican  form 
of  Government  when  there  were  4,000,000 
slaves  owned  by  350,000  masters. 

But  suppose  the  slaves  are  diffused,  and  the 
4,000,000  thus  owned  by  350,000,  are  spread 
over  fifteen  States,  does  that  make  any  differ¬ 
ence  in  the  Principle  ?  Not  the  smallest  in  the 
world.  If  it  be  not  consistent  with  the  Declara¬ 
tion  of  Independence  and  with  the  Constitution 
for  one  man  to  own  4,000,000  men  in  a  single 
State,  and  in  virtue  of  that  ownership  to  ap¬ 
point  all  the  delegates  therefrom  to  Congress  ; 
then  it  is  not  consistent  for  350,000  men  to 
own  4,000,000  in  fifteen  States,  and  in  virtue 
of  that  ownership  to  have  a  proportionate 
share  in  ruling  the  nation.  It  is  no  more  con¬ 
sistent  for  the  350,000  to  own  one  man,  and 
debar  him  from  those  natural  rights  which 
Governments  are  instituted  to  secure,  which  the 
Revolution  was  fought  to  protect,  and  the 
Constitution  framed  to  establish,  than  it  is 
for  one  man  to  own  4,000,000. 

But,  if  the  matter  is  not  yet  quite  clear,  take 
one  illustration  more.  In  New  England  we 
have  a  celebrated  Democrat,  who  has  held 
high  offices,  civil  and  military,  under  all  the 
parties  which  have  been  in  power  since  my 
boyhood.  He  declares  that  our  fathers  made 
a  great  mistake  in  setting  up  a  Democracy  with 
equal  rights  and  universal  suffrage :  they 
ought  to  have  founded  a  limited  monarchy, 


13 


with  an  established  church,  a  hereditary  peer¬ 
age,  and  its  appropriate  garnish.  This  famous 
man  is  just  now  alike  the  champion  of  Slavery 
and  the  Democratic  party.  Let  us  suppose  he 
should  preserve  his  historical  continuity  of 
deceit,  and  betray  his  new  coadjutors  as  he  has 
all  his  former  helpers  and  friends  —  Whig, 
Free  Soil, and  Republican;  that  he, with  other 
men  to  aid  him,  should  subdue  all  the  unterri¬ 
fied  Democrats  of  Massachusetts,  including  the 
new  converts,  which  the  late  revival  of  admin¬ 
istrative  Democracy  has  brought  in  at  the 
eleventh  hour,  or  only  five  minutes  before 
twelve  —  hoping  likewise  to  get  “every  man 
his  penny  "  of  national  plunder ;  suppose  he 
shpuld  enslave  them  all,  and  likewise  all  the 
Know  Nothings  of  the  State  ;  such  as  were 
born  Know  Nothings,  them  also  that  were  made 
Know  Nothings  of  men,  and  such  likewise  as 
have  made  themselves  Know  Nothings  for  the 
kingdom  of  earth's  sake  ;  suppose  he  should, 
moreover,  enslave  the  foreign  population,  and 
reduce  all  these  three  great  parties — Demo¬ 
crats,  Know  Nothings,  and  Foreigners,  to 
“chattels  personal  to  all  intents, uses, and  pur¬ 
poses  whatsoever.’'  There  are  a  quarter  of  a 
million  Foreigners  :  the  Democrats,  with  their 
families,  are  at  least  as  numerous  ;  and,  accord¬ 
ing  to  the  census  of  the  Know  Nothing  voters, 
made  by  their  late  Governor,  —  whose  reputa¬ 
tion  for  veracity  is  beyond  all  question, — there 
must  be  in  the  State  at  least  400,000,  “  to  a 
mathematical  certainty."  Suppose  the  figures 
are  correct,  and  this  conqueror,  by  his  Coup  d’ 
Etat ,  gains  him  900,000  slaves,  all  of  them 
white  men,  which  lie  distributes  among  1000 
cf  his  fellows.  Massachusetts  has  then  a  pop¬ 
ulation  of  900,000  slaves,  and  300,000  or  400,- 
000  freemen.  Suppose,  further,  that  the  1000 
slaveholders  of  Massachusetts,  following  the 
example  of  Virginia,  desist  from  commerce 
and  manufactures,  let  the  fisheries  slide,  and 
pay  little  heed  even  to  agriculture  ;  but  make 
it  their  chief  business  to  breed  white  slaves  for 
sale.  And  as,  by  the  action  of  England,  and 
other  powers  of  Christendom,  the  African  slave 
trade  declines,  suppose  Massachusetts  acquires 
the  monopoly  of  the  business,  has  no  competi¬ 
tor  in  the  Atlantic,  and  sells  her  white  chattels 
into  bondage  at  Cuba  and  Brazil,  as  Virginia 
sends  the  particolored  descendants  of  her  first 
families  to  Georgia,  Alabama,  Mississippi, 
Louisiana,  Texas,  and  a  market.  Suppose 
our  Democrat,  old  in  apostatizing,  becomes  the 
King  of  Massachusetts  —  absolute  monarch  — 
‘crushes  out"  all  Freedom  of  the  Press,  the 


Pulpit,  the  Pen,  the  Lip,  or  the  Hand  ;  appoints 
his  servants  to  the  local  and  the  national 

9 

offices;  and  sends  appropriate  men  to  represent 
him  in  the  Capitol  —  would  Congress  admit 
them  there  ?  would  they  consider  that  Massa¬ 
chusetts  had  a  Republican  Form  of  Govern¬ 
ment  ?  We  all  know  what  the  decision  would 
be.  But  is  it  more  anti-republican  to  reduce 
men  to  bondage  than  to  keep  them  in  it  ?  Is  it 
conformable  to  the  self-evident  truths  of  the 
Declaration  to  enslave  a  black  man  and  not  a 
white  man  ?  Is  it  consistent  with  the  pur¬ 
poses  of  the  Constitution  to  raise  Africans  for 
market  in  Virginia,  and  inconsistent  therewith 
to  raise  Irishmen,  Democrats,  Know  Nothings, 
for  sale  in  Massachusetts  %  If  the  Constitution 
allows  Virginia  to  deprive  a  single  innocent 
black  man  of  his  natural  right  to  life,  liberty, 
and  the  pursuit  of  happiness,  then  it  must 
equally  allow  Massachusetts  also  to  rob  white 
men  of  what  the  Revolution  was  fought  to  se¬ 
cure  to  both  white  and  black. 

Take  another  case.  The  Declaration  of  In- 
pendence  sets  forth  the  People’s  right  to  destroy 
an  oppressive  Government,  and  establish  a 
new  one,  which  shall  secure  their  safety  and 
happiness.  But  neither  in  that  paper,  nor  vet 
in  the  Constitution  do  the  People  say  that  eth¬ 
nologic  origin  or  cutaneous  color,  affects  the 
self-evident  Rights  of  themselves  and  their  pos¬ 
terity.  Now,  in  South  Carolina  there  are  395,- 
000  Black  men,  and  274,000  White  ones.  The 
Africans  have  121,000  majority  in  the  State, 
but  are  wickedly  oppressed.  Suppose  that 
majority  should  make  a  special  application  of 
this  Principle  of  the  Declaration,  and  should 
put  the  Blacks  where  the  Whites  are  now — 
making  them  “  chattels  personal  to  all  intents, 
uses,  and  purposes  whatsoever,"  and  claim  the 
additional  number  of  Representatives  in  Con¬ 
gress  on  that  account :  would  the  Democrats 
acknowledge  that  South  Carolina  had  a  “  Re¬ 
publican  form  of  Government,"  when  such 
a  majority  enslaved  such  a  minority  1  But  if 
“  what  is  sauce  for  the  goose  is  sauce  for  the 
gander,"  then  what  is  a  “  Republican  form  of 
Government  "  for  the  White  minority  to  en¬ 
slave  the  Black  majority  withal,  must  be  at 
least  equally  “  Republican  ”  for  the  majo  tty 
to  enslave  the  minority  by. 

Extreme  cases  make  shipwreck  of  false  inter¬ 
pretations  ;  they  are  the  roadstead  where  just 
principles  can  ride  secure,  to  embark  their 
cargo,  or  unload^  their  freight.  If  we  define  a 
Republican  form  of  Government  by  the  Consti- 


14 


tution,  and  the  Declaration,  which  is  its  prevc- 
nient  Cause,  — then  it  is  evident  it  must  con¬ 
form  to  the  Revolutionary  Programme  of  Prin¬ 
ciples,  and  the  Constitutional  Programme  of 
Purposes.  It  must  be  a  Government  which 
secures  all  men  in  their  natural,  unalienable, 
and  equal  right  to  life,  liberty,  and  the  pursuit 
of  happiness :  such  and  such  only  !  Now,  as 
slaverv  is  the  denial  of  all  these  rights  to  the 
enslaved — as  it  makes  the  substance  of  the 
bondman  an  accident  of  the  master — it  is  plain 
that  slavery  is  utterly  incompatible  with  a  Re¬ 
publican  form  of  Government;  that  no  slave 
State  has  a  Republican  form  of  Government; 
that  there  are  fifteen  States  in  this  Union  to 
which  the  Federal  Power  has  not  performed  the 
Constitutional  Duty  which  it  is  solemnly  bound 
to  perform.  Any  slave  in  the  Union  has  a 
Constitutional  claim  that  Congress  shall  fulfil 
this  obligation  —  set  him  free,  and  secure  his 
natural,  unalienable,  and  equal  rights  to  life, 
liberty,  and  the  pursuit  of  happiness. 

But  there  is  one  argument  more  against  this 
definition  of  Republican  form  of  Government 
— viz.,  this :  “  The  classic  and  the  mediaeval 
Republics  allowed  slavery — therefore  it  is  not 
inconsistent  with  a  Republic  now — nay,  it  is 
indispensably  necessary ;  there  can  be  no  Re¬ 
public  without  slavery.”  But  these  ancient 
governments  had  no  such  Declaration  of  Prin¬ 
ciples  and  Purposes  as  our  fathers  started  with  ; 
they  laid  down  no  great  platform  of  natural 
Rights  for  all  men.  The  argument  for  slavery 
derived  from  the  constitution  of  those  ancient 
governments  is  of  no  more  value  than  the  sim¬ 
ilar  argument  from  their  rapacity,  their  cruelty, 
or  their  oppression  of  the  Plebeians  at  Rome, 
who  were  yet  not  slaves.  The  degradation  of 
man  in  the  ancient  republics  is  no  more  to  be 
copied  as  essential  to  that  form  of  Govern¬ 
ment  than  the  degradation  of  woman.  A  con¬ 
stitutional  representative  Democracy  did  not 
exist  in  the  old  times.  Abuses  in  Greece, 
in  Italy,  in  Germany,  Switzerland,  Holland, 
are  no  universal  warrant  for  wickedness  in 
America.  I  know  there  are  men  in  Virginia 
and  South  Carolina,  who  quote  Aristotle  and 
Cicero  in  favor  of  American  slavery;  they 
^ecm  to  have  read  the  translations  of  these 
authors  only  to  get  arguments  against  the 
Natural  Rights  of  Mankind.  Similar  men 
have  studied  the  Old  Testament  but  to  find 
out  that  Abraham  was  a  slaveholder,  that 
Moses  authorized  bondage;  they  have  read 
the  New  only  to  find  divine  inspiration  in  the 


words  of  Paul,  which  they  wrest  into  this  : 
“  Slaves,  obey  your  masters  !  ”  If  they  have 
both  the  Hebrew  and  the  Christian  Religion 
and  the  Spirit  of  Humanity  against  them, 
they  have  the  Hon.  Edward  Everett  on  their 
side. 

Besides,  in  a  progressive  People  there  must 
be  a  Progressive  Interpretation  of  many  insti¬ 
tutions  and  statutes.  Thus  the  Common  Law 
of  England  did  not  change,  but  ship-money 
became  illegal ;  and  slavery  perished  by  an  in¬ 
terpretation.  No  number  of  decisions  by 
learned  Judges,  no  royal  usage,  no  popular 
acquiescence  for  centuries,  could  withstand  the 
demand  for  natural  Justice  made  by  the  in¬ 
creased  knowledge,  virtue  and  humanity  of 
the  progressive  People.  At  London,  Mr. 
Bernard  has  just  been  tried  under  laws  which 
have  put  the  halter  round  a  hundred  necks  ; 
no  doubt  he  did  the  deed  charged  on  him.  but 
a  London  Jury  righteously  acquits  the  man. 
The  Chief  Justice  of  the  King’s  Bench,  who 
presided  at  the  trial,  in  another  post,  has  done 
much  to  promote  this  moralization  of  the  law, 
by  expounding  it  to  suit  the  humane  spirit  of 
an  enlightened  age,  and  the  moral  purpose  of 
Law  itself,  which,  as  Hooker  says,  “  has  its 
seat  in  the  bosom  of  God/’ 

But  I  need  not  cross  the  seas  for  examples 
of  this  progressive  moralization  of  institutions 
and  of  statutes.  In  the  Amendments  to  the 
Constitution,  Art.  VIII.,  it  is  provided  that 
“  cruel  and  unusual  punishments  shall  not  be 
inflicted.”  If  Congress  should  decree  the  pun¬ 
ishment  of  crucifixion  against  all  who  aid  a 
fugitive  slave,  could  that  torture  be  justified  as 
neither  cruel  nor  yet  “  unnatural,”  because  it 
had  been  common  in  the  Roman  “  Republic,” 
or  because  Alexander — the  pupil  of  Aristotle, 
the  most  thinking  man  in  the  most  democratic 
of  ancient  u  Republics  ” — for  no  offence  at  all, 
once  crucified  two  thousand  captive  Tyi'ians 
in  a  single  day  ?  In  the  time  when  the  Peo¬ 
ple  made  the  Constitution,  some  of  the  States 
punished  certain  offences  by  branding  with  a 
hot  iron,  by  cropping  the  ears,  and  other  mu¬ 
tilations  even  more  atrocious.  Suppose  Con¬ 
gress  should  pass  a  law  inflicting  the  most 
odious  of  those  tortures  on  defaulters,  on 
members  of  Congress  whom  the  President 
openly  bribes  to  vote  against  the  well-known 
principles  of  Justice,  is  there  any  man  who 
would  justify  that  punishment  by  declaring 
that  once  it  was  “ usual,”  and  could  not  now 
be  considered  “cruel”'?  No  doubt  there  are 


15 


such  men  in  New  York  ;  I  know  there  are  in 
Boston  —  but  the  People  do  not  go  to  the 
cess-pools  of  society  to  find  a  test  of  right  and 
wrong. 

I  think  the  form  of  indenture  for  apprentices 
to  the  business  of  the  goldsmith  in  England, 
as  far  back  as  the  14th  century,  provided  that 
the  youth  should  receive  “  sufficient  instruc¬ 
tion.”  Suppose  a  lad  is  apprenticed  now  by 
the  same  form  of  indenture,  and  the  master 
gives  him  just  that  amount  of  “  instruction  ” 
which  was  “sufficient”  for  a  goldsmith's  ap¬ 
prentice  then,  and  no  more :  is  there  a  jury  in 
America  that  would  justify  the  master's 
neglect  on  the  technical  plea  that  he  had  done 
all  “the  worshipful  company  of  Goldsmiths 
in  London  ''  would  require,  five  hundred  years 
ago  ? 

If,  in  Boston,  a  surgeon  should  amputate  a 
lady’s  arm  at  the  elbow,  and  plunge  the 
stump  in  boiling  pitch  to  stanch  the  blood,  and 
she  should  die  of  the  operation,  and  he  were 
indicted  for  manslaughter,  could  he  justify  his 
malpractice  by  showing  that  such  was  the  com¬ 
mon  method  before  the  time  of  Hippocrates, 
and  was  recommended  by  that  great  master  of 
the  healing  art  ? 

In  Article  I.  of  the  Amendments  to  the 
Constitution,  it  is  provided  that  Congress  shall 
not  prohibit  the  free  exercise  of  religion.  The 
District  of  Columbia  is  under  the  exclusive 
jurisdiction  of  Congress.  There  are  Catholics 
in  it.  Suppose  a  company  of  Catholics  should 
burn  a  heretic  alive,  as  they  have  done  many 
a  thousand  times,  and  as  some  of  their  writers 
declare  they  will  again,  as  soon  as  they  have 
the  power,  could  they  justify  themselves  on 
the  ground  that  it  was  a  part  of  their  religion 
to  do  so ;  quote  the  old  English  statute  de 
Uccretico  comhurendo,  and  adduce  a  long  list  of 
precedents,  running  back  to  the  fifth  century, 
and  appeal  to  this  clause  of  the  Constitution  ? 

Suppose  the  present  “  revival  of  religion '’ 
should  work  southward,  and  by  some  “  special 
miracle  ’'  should  incline  the  heart  of  one  of  the 
great  Southern  Senators  who  arc  champions 
of  slavery  to  a  particular  act  of  his  new  zeal. 
Suppose  he  should  sacrifice  his  son  as  a  burnt- 
offering  ;  let  us  suppose  it  was  not  his  only 
son,  not  even  the  son  of  his  wife,  but  of  a  bond 
woman — the  Patriarch  is  imitated  in  more 
particulars  than  one.  When  brought  to  trial 
for  the  wilful  murder,  could  lie  justify  it  by 
appealing  to  this  clause  of  the  Constitution, 
declaring  it  was  in  the  free  exercise  of  his  reli¬ 
gion  that  he  did  the  deed,  following  the  example 


of  the  mythical  Patriarch,  to  whom  the  mere 
intention  was  “imputed  for  righteousness;” 
and  declaring  that  he  who  had  done  the  deed 
was  as  much  more  “  righteous  ”  than  Abraham 
as  Works  are  better  than  Faith,  which  cannot 
be  seen  without  them  ?  I  doubt  that  a  jury 
would  acquit  him  on  that  constitutional  de¬ 
fence,  for  there  has  been  some  little  progress 
in  the  idea  of  Religion  since  the  days  when 
it  was  thought  that  God  delighted  in  human 
sacrifice ! 

Our  own  institutions  are  continually  modi¬ 
fied  by  the  spirit  of  the  age,  nay,  even  by  the  par¬ 
ty  that  controls  the  nation  for  the  time.  Need 
I  mention  the  conflicting  judgments  of  Ex¬ 
pounders  of  the  Constitution  in  regard  to  a 
Bank,  a  Protective  Tariff,  Internal  Improve¬ 
ments,  and  the  like  1  “  Contemporary  exposi¬ 

tion,”  says  the  maxim,  “  is  the  strongest  of 
all.”  It  is  only  a  rope  of  sand,  which  binds 
no  man.  Jefferson's  “  exposition’'  Avas  old 
enough  to  be  “  contemporary  ”  in  law ;  he 
thought  the  Constitution  did  not  justify  the  ac¬ 
quisition  of  new  territory,  and  recommended  an 
amendment  to  save  the  purchase  of  Louisiana. 
Who  believes  it  now  ?  It  has  been  the  settled 
practice  as  well  as  the  consistent  theory  of  the 
American  Government,  to  regard  colored  free¬ 
men  as  citizens  of  the  United  States.  All  at 
once,  the  Supreme  Court  repels  the  “  contem¬ 
porary  exposition,”  and  overthrows  the  estab¬ 
lished  principles  of  law.  There  has  been  a 
progressive  demoralization  of  the  Constitution, 
and  no  wonder  men  should  cry  out  against  a 
plain  application  of  one  of  its  most  valuable 
provisions ! 

Of  course,  I  do  not  suppose  that  this  guar¬ 
anty  of  a  Republican  form  of  Government 
applies  merely  to  the  liberation  of  slaves :  one 
day,  the  humanity  and  knowledge  of  the  age 
will  decide  that  the  Declaration  of  Indepen¬ 
dence  and  the  Constitution  itself  arc  adequate 
to  secure  the  natural  rights  of  women  not  less 
than  men.  But  let  us  take  one  step  at  a  time  ; 
so  shall  we  be  ready  for  the  next. 

It  is  not  only  unconstitutional,  it  is  also 
most  dangerous  to  admit  that  Slavery  is  con¬ 
sistent  with  a  Republican  form  of  Government. 
The  South  claims  a  constitutional  right  to 
that  anti-republican  institution.  In  her  own 
affairs,  the  North  decides  against  it,  and  casts 
it  away  with  scorn  and  loathing :  but  she  for¬ 
gets  the  sacred  obligation  of  the  Constitution 
—  its  solemn  guaranties — and  allows  the 
minority  of  the  South  to  have  their  wicked 


16 


way  at  home.  See  the  pernicious  conse¬ 
quences. 

1 .  In  each  Southern  State  there  has  grown 
up  a  hateful  Oligarchy,  a  Few-Men  power ;  it  is 
not  an  Aristocracy — the  rule  of  the  best, — 
but  a  Kakistocracv  —  the  rule  of  the  worst,  — 
of  the  worst  rules  of  conduct,  if  not  the  worst 
conductors.  There  is  a  privileged  class,  with 
the  odious  monopoly  of  making  property  of 
men. 

2.  The  few  slaveholders  rule  the  majority  in 
all  the  Southern  States  ; — they  own  the  blacks, 
they  overpower  the  poor  whites.  While  en¬ 
riching  themselves,  they  yet  impoverish  the 
community  and  the  State  ;  they  hinder  educa¬ 
tion  ;  they  debauch  and  demoralize  the  People. 

3.  They  control  the  nation.  It  is  their  crea¬ 
tures  who  hold  the  Federal  offices,  and  rule 
the  North.  They  invade  the  local  rights  of  the 
Northern  States  — in  the  examples  I  have  al¬ 
ready  given,  and  many  more.  If  the  North 
makes  the  law,  the  South  appoints  the  judges, 
who  can  unmake  it  by  their  exposition.  The 
Supreme  Court  is  a  judicial  revolver  in  the 
Southern  hand  —  or  is  it,  rather,  only  a  Blud¬ 
geon,  to  strike  Freedom  down  7 

It  is  painful  to  see  the  increase  of  central 
power,  and  the  decay  of  local  self-government. 
Northern  State  rights  are  trod  down  to  the 
dust  beneath  the  hoof  of  the  Federal  power. 
Slavery  is  the  cause  of  this  vicious  centraliza¬ 
tion.  Since  the  Alien  and  Sedition  laws  were 
made,  intended  to  gag  men,  I  think  of  no  ad¬ 
vance  towards  despotism,  except  what  has 
been  made  by  the  Slave  Power  to  defend  and 
greaten  its  peculiar  institution.  The  guaran¬ 
ty  of  a  Republican  form  of  Government  is  a 
security  against  centralization  of  power.  It  is 
the  People's  command  to  establish  local  self- 
government  in  every  State  by  the  Principles 
of  the  Declaration,  and  for  the  Purposes  of 
the  Constitution. 

Northern  men  are  strangely  unfaithful. 
They  do  not  attack  slavery  itself.  I  think 
there  is  now  no  political  party  in  the  United 
States  which  declares  itself  hostile  to  slavery. 
It  is  only  the  incidents  or  the  accidents  of 
slavery  which  the  Republican  party  opposes. 
They  cry  out  against  “  Extension  of  slavery," 
not  against  the  Existence  of  slavery  itself.  So 
they  have  measures  without  a  Principle. 
Commissioner  Loring,  while  Judge  of  Probate 
for  Suffolk  County,  kidnapped  a  man,  and 
sent  him  back  to  slavery ;  he  put  off  the 
widows  and  orphans  who  came  to  his  Court, 


thinking  the  sacrifice  of  a  man  was  more  to  be 
desired  than  mercy,  or  even  justice.  The 
People  of  the  State  were  moved  with  indigna¬ 
tion,  and  sought  to  hurl  the  unjust  Judge  from 
the  office  he  disgraced.  After  many  delays, 
shufflings  and  dodgings,  the  matter  was  brought 
before  a  Republican  Governor,  who  removed 
him,  but  took  pains  to  declare  that  he  did  not 
do  this  because  Mr.  Loring  had  kidnapped  a 
man  —  “  no  official  opinion  of  his  entering 
into  my  consideration  of  the  question,  and  no 
official  act  constituting  an  element  in  the  judg¬ 
ment  I  have  formed." 

Thus  the  Republican  party  fails  to  satisfy 
the  moral  sense  of  the  People,  and  to  com¬ 
mand  the  respect  of  the  merely  thoughtful, 
who,  if  they  do  not  feel  justly  or  love  mercy, 
can  yet  see  inconsistency,  and  despise  Meas¬ 
ures  which  are  bottomed  on  no  Principle  ; 
and  scorn  the  men  who  are  false  alike  to  their 
moral  convictions  and  their  official  opportuni¬ 
ties.  Thus  in  the  late  Presidential  campaign 
the  party  nominated  for  its  champion  a  man 
never  before  identified  with  its  principles,  or 
even  devoted  to  its  measures.  Hence,  fortu¬ 
nate  for  itself,  it  was  defeated.  No  Political 
Party  has  yet  a  platform  high  enough  to  com¬ 
mand  a  full  view  of  the  field,  or  lift  its  repre¬ 
sentatives  up  to  such  a  moral  elevation  as 
shall  draw  the  eyes  of  all  good  men. 

It  is  clear  what  we  ought  to  do  —  the  North 
must  declare  “  Slavery  not  to  be  toler¬ 
ated  in  a  Republican  Form  or  Govern¬ 
ment.  No  Property  in  Man.  Immediate 
Abolition.  No  Slave  State  in  the 
Union."  We  shall  come  to  that  by  and  by, 
not  all  at  once  —  little  by  little  —  step  by  step, 
not  by  a  jump.  Nihil  saltatim,  gradatim 
omne,  is  good  Latin.  Already  the  People  look 
that  way.  What  they  want  is  a  Leader,  who 
is  not  only  intellectually  sharp,  but  also  moral¬ 
ly  just.  Mere  intellect,  looking  only  after  what 
is  profitable  for  to-day,  can  never  see  Justice, 
God's  idea  of  what  is  profitable  to  all  men,  and 
forever :  while  yet  a  conscientious  woman  will 
know  it  at  once,  and  can  give  the  counsel 
which  would  save  a  State.  The  nice  ear,  laid 
to  the  ground,  hears  the  airy  footstep  of  the 
thunder,  when  a  great  ways  off ;  yet  it  never 
sees  the  Rainbow,  close  at  hand,  wdiich  yet 
every  clear-eyed  boy  in  the  farmer's  barnyard 
looks  on  with  wonder,  delighted  at  that  hand¬ 
some  angel  who  tells  him  the  storm  is  over  and 
gone.  Each  faculty  has  its  function ;  those 
of  cunning  and  conscience  are  not  the  same. 


» 


17 


In  1787,  the  People  of  the  United  States 
tolerated  slavery  as  a  Measure  ;  all  the  States 
had  it  then,  save  Massachusetts,  alone,  as  I 
think  —  though  Mr.  Hale  adds  also  New 
Hampshire,  and  I  wish  he  may  be  as  correct 
here  as  he  is  commonly  right  elsewhere.  But 
the  People  of  the  United  States  never  admit¬ 
ted  slavery  as  a  Principle.  So,  not  only  in 
the  Declaration  do  they  lay  down  maxims,  the 
norm  of  Institutions,  and  in  the  Constitution, 
the  norm  of  Statutes  and  Customs,  do  they  also 
propose  purposes  utterly  destructive  of  Prop¬ 
erty  in  Man ;  but  in  the  Constitution  they 
would  not  tolerate  the  word  Slave  or  Bond- 
man,  lest  they  should  be  thought  to  admit  as 
a  permanent  Principle  of  Politics,  what  they 
only  tolerated  for  the  moment  as  a  Measure  of 
Necessity. 

But,  after  the  People,  in  their  weakness  or 
wickedness,  allowed  slavery  as  a  Measure,  then 
the  Southern  States  got  possession  of  the  Gov¬ 
ernment,  claimed  that  slavery  was  a  Principle, 
a  Constitutional  Principle,  a  Republican  Prin¬ 
ciple,  nay,  a  necessary  Principle,  and  devel¬ 
oped  it  into  numerous  measures  hostile  to  the 
self-evident  Truths  our  fathers  fought  for,  and 
subversive  of  all  the  great  Purposes  for  which 
they  built  the  Union  up.  Slavery  is  a  Prin¬ 
ciple —  the  special  Principle  of  the  Southern 
States  —  the  distinctive  Shibboleth  thereof. 
It  is  the  Principle  of  Despotism  ;  also  of  na¬ 
tional  ruin. 

But  Freedom  is  also  a  Principle  —  the  dis¬ 
tinctive  Principle  of  our  Revolutionary  and 
our  Constructive  Purpose.  The  two  cannot 
long  continue  in  the  same  Government.  The 
People  cannot  go  backwards  to  Slavery,  and 
the  despotic  ruin  which  that  abuts  on ;  and  at 
the  same  time  go  forward  to  Freedom,  and  the 
manifold  welfare  it  leads  to.  America  can¬ 
not  have  Regress  and  Progress  at  the  same 
time. 


Slavery  platform  that  these  gravest  of  all  mat¬ 
ters  can  be  now  discussed  ;  no  where  else  are 
they  looked  fairly  in  the  face.  But  still  the 
question  forces  itself  into  the  Politics  of  the 
nation,  of  every  State,  of  each  considerable 
town,  nay,  into  all  the  theological  sects.  The 
slaveholders  and  their  vassals,  North  and 
South,  loudly  declare,  “  Slavery  is  essential  to 
the  Republican  form  of  Government.”  The 
rest  of  the  nation  feel  that  Freedom  is  the 
essential  of  a  Republic,  yes,  of  all  continuous 
Progress,  and  of  all  sure  Welfare;  but  they 
dare  not  say  so  yet. 

What  cowards  we  are  !  Hence  the  best  in¬ 
stitutions  of  the  North  are  an  object  of  con¬ 
tinual  attack.  The  South  (I  mean  the  slave¬ 
holders)  hate  the  North,  hate  her  Republican 
Principles,  hate  her  Democratic  Purposes, 
hate  her  Progress,  hate  her  Welfare,  hate 
her  best  men  !  They  seek  to  ruin  us.  Forty 
years  ago,  they  made  a  tariff  to  ruin  the 
commerce  of  the  North  ;  then  they  unmade 
it,  to  ruin  our  manufactures.  The  Senato¬ 
rial  executive  repeals  the  Bounty  paid  to  the 
Northern  fisheries  ;  Mr.  Boyce,  of  South  Caro¬ 
lina,  proposes  to  abolish  all  custom-houses, 
and  collect  the  nation's  revenue  by  a  direct 
tax.  I  also  wish  his  plan  might  succeed,  and 
will  do  all  in  my  little  power  to  help  the  work. 
But  while  I  would  recommend  this  as  a  great 
Principle  of  Democracy,  which  will  deprive  the 
Federal  Government  of  the  means  of  corrup¬ 
tion,  the  Hon.  Senator  from  the  State  of  Bully 
Brooks  and  Keitt  designs  it  only  as  an  oligar¬ 
chic  Measure  of  Revenge,  meant  to  harm  the 
North.  That  stone  thrown  into  the  air  would 
fall  back  on  the  Southern  head,  and  destroy 
half  the  army  and  navy  of  the  nation,  and 
crush  out  of  sight  I  know  not  how  many  polit¬ 
ical  office-holders. 

I  say  the  power  of  the  Federal  Government 
greatens  at  the  expense  of  the  Northern  States. 
Every  increase  of  that  central  power  enlarges 
the  courage,  the  strength,  and  the  malignant 
insolence  of  your  Southern  masters.  Listen 
to  Senator  Hammond  :  the  New  England  men 
are  slaves  ;  you  and  I  are  slaves  ;  but,  alas  ! 
we  have  no  masters  bound  to  take  care  of  us 
when  sick  and  old  !  Compare  the  last  four 
Administrations  —  that  of  Polk,  Fillmore, 
Pierce,  Buchanan  ;  see  with  what  accelerated 
velocity  they  descend  towards  slavery. 

What  efforts  have  been  made  by  the  Slave 
Power  to  prevent  the  people  of  Kansas  from 
establishing  a  Republican  form  of  Govern¬ 
ment  !  what  monstrous  money  has  been  spent 


There  is  one  great  Political  question  before 
the  American  People  —  “  Is  Slavery  consist¬ 
ent  with  the  Republican  form  of  Government 
which  the  Revolution  was  fought  to  secure, 
and  the  Union  established  to  found  ?  n  Parties 
represent  the  tendencies  of  the  People.  They 
are  crucial  experiments,  guide-boards,  to  point 
this  way  or  that.  There  is  no  political  party 
whose  finger  indicates  the  road  to  that  true 
Republican  Government  which  shall  realize 
the  Principles  and  Purposes  of  those  great  doc¬ 
uments  of  the  People.  It  is  only  on  this  Anti- 


18 


to  enslave  Kansas  !  what  efforts  are  making 
still  !  The  battle  between  Freedom  and  Sla¬ 
very  is  now  waging  there.  The  question  is 
now  before  her  People,  “  Will  you  make  a  Re¬ 
publican  form  of  Government,  or  take  the  An¬ 
ti-Republican  which  the  Slave  Power  seeks  to 
force  on  you  with  the  bayonet  ?  "  Tilt  Meas¬ 
ure  is  of  great  importance,  the  Principle  of 
yet  more.  There  are  two  plans  of  action  for 
the  people  there  to  choose  between. 

I.  The  wicked  plan  —  to  accept  the  Lc- 
compton  Constitution,  take  the  bribe  of  Eng¬ 
lish's  Bill,  come  into  the  Union  as  a  slave 
State ;  then  repudiate  that  Constitution,  and 
make  a  new  one  prohibiting  slavery.  This 
course  will  be  recommended  by  political  job¬ 
bers,  land-speculators,  and  many  men  who 
“  have  axes  to  grind  ;  ’’  but  it  is  wrong,  it  is 
impracticable,  and  liable  to  defeat  at  every 
step  ;  it  is  not  likely  to  succeed,  and  is  dis¬ 
graceful  if  it  prosper. 

II.  The  just  plan  —  to  vote  down  the  Lc- 
compton  Constitution,  repudiate  English's 
Bill,  organize  under  the  new  Leavenworth 
Constitution,  and  appeal  to  the  freemen  of  the 
North.  There  will  be  no  violence  offered  by 
the  Federal  Government.  A  new  election  of 
Representatives  to  Congress  takes  place  next 
autumn.  Then  the  Northern  men  who  voted 
for  Mr.  English's  Bill  to  force  the  Lecompton 
Constitution  on  Kansas,  will  go  where  they 
who  voted  for  Mr.  Douglas’s  Ivansas-Nebraska 
Bill  were  driven  at  the  subsequent  elections. 
The  new  House  of  Representatives  will  come 
together  in  December,  1859,  fresh  from  the 
People.  Some  advantageous  changes  will 
have  taken  place  in  the  Senate  ;  Unitary  New 
England  will  count  twelve  in  the  column  of 
Freedom  !  Kansas  will  apply  for  admission  as 
a  free  State ;  Mr.  Buchanan,  unpopular,  de¬ 
feated,  despised,  going  out  of  power,  will  not 
be  able  to  scare  men,  coax,  or  even  to  buy  them 
as  now.  The  House  of  Representatives  will 
accept  the  new  State,  and  offer  a  richer  dowry 
than  the  Slave  Power  now  tries  to  tempt  her 
with.  The  Senate  will  seek  to  settle  the  Kan¬ 
sas  difficulty  before  the  Presidential  election  of 
the  next  year,  and  so  will  gladly  admit  her. 
Kansas  will  lose  nothing  but  a  little  time,  and 
that  loss  will  be  a  gain  to  the  Anti-Slavery 
party  of  the  North. 

Within  a  few  days,  Minnesota  has  become 
a  State ;  Oregon  will  soon  come  within  the 
ring;  Kansas  cannot  long  be  kept  out.  All 
these  will  be  Anti-Slavery  States.  While  ter¬ 


ritories,  they  are  necessarily  kept  tied  to  the 
politics  of  the  administration  party;  but  when 
independent  States,  their  individual  character 
will  straightway  appear.  Soon  there  will  be  a 
majority  of  Senators  hostile  to  Slaver)'.  I 
think  we  shall  never  see  another  slave  State 
added  to  the  Union,  nor  another  slave- 
President  defiling  the  Capitol.  After  long 
waiting  for  something  to  turn  up,"  Mr. 
Everett,  it  seems,  if  I  understand  his  actions 
and  words,  has  now  nominated  himself  for  the 
highest  American  office,  and  put  himself  on  the 
country.  Guided  by  the  “  Southern  matron," 
—  a  woman  from  the  Bludgeon  State,  who 
had  never  a  husband  or  even  a  child, —  this 
professional  rhetorician  has  gone  down  to  the 
electioneering  deep  to  do  business  in  great 
waters.  With  the  cold  lead  of  his  charity  ser¬ 
mon  for  sinker,  and  a  small  piece  of  General 
Washington’s  dead  body  as  bait,  he  casts  his 
line  upon  all  waters,  bobbing  for  the  Presi¬ 
dency  !  But,  alas  !  I  think  he  will  toil  all  the 
night  of  his  old  age,  and  catch  nothing,  for  the 
South  has  just  repealed  the  bounty  on  North¬ 
ern  fishery!  Instead  of  the  spoils  of  that  deep, 
he  will  take  only  an  “  anodyne,"  and  serve 
but  to  “  point  a  moral  and  adorn  a  tale."  No, 
Mr.  Chairman,  I  think  we  shall  never  have 
another  slavery-President.  That  creature  has 
been  weighed  in  the  balance,  and  found  want¬ 
ing  ;  his  days  are  numbered,  and  will  be  fin¬ 
ished  soon.  No  victory  of  the  Slave  Power 
enures  to  the  permanent  advantage  of  that 
Power.  The  Mexican  War,  the  Fugitive 
Slave  Bill,  the  Kansas-Nebraska  Bill,  the 
English  Bill,  they  are  four  jumps  of  the  frog 
in  the  well — each  time  he  went  up  a  foot, 
but  slid  down  three  more  before  he  leaped 
again  !  Slave-President  Pierce  came  into 
power  with  a  vast  majority  —  he  went  out  with 
more ;  slave-President  Buchanan  eoukl  not 
get  the  People's  vote, —  he  is  a  minority 
President !  But  what  power  he  had  last  De¬ 
cember,  a  majority  of  twenty-two  in  the  House 
of  Representatives  !  What  is  it  now  ?  Where 
will  it  be  in  December,  1859  ?  —  where  will 
he  and  his  party  be  in  December,  1860  ? 

Slavery  is  immoral ;  it  is  also  unconstitu¬ 
tional.  It  must  be  put  down  by  the  social 
action  of  the  People  —  if  not  by  Local  Self- 
l  government  in  the  Southern  States,  then  by 
the  Federal  Arm  of  the  whole  nation  —  peace¬ 
ably  if  they  will,  forcibly  if  we  must. 

The  work  of  Abolition  is  moral  in  its  sub¬ 
stance  ;  it  is  likewise  political  in  its  form. 
While  from  the  stand-point  of  individual  con- 


19 


science,  slavery  is  a  Wrong  —  what  ministers 
call  a  Sin  —  from  that  of  American  Politics, 
it  is  the  denial  of  a  Republican  form  of  Gov¬ 
ernment,  that  is,  a  repudiation  of  the  Princi¬ 
ples  and  Purposes  of  the  American  People,  sol¬ 
emnly  set  forth  in  both  the  Revolutionary  and 
the  -Constructive  Programme  —  the  Declara¬ 
tion  of  Independence  and  the  Constitution  of 
the  United  States. 

All  Federal  officers  hold  place  under  the 
Power  of  Attorney  which  the  People  swear 
them  on  ;  by  that.  Congress  has  no  authority 
to  establish  slavery  in  any  territory,  to  protect 
it  in  any  territory,  or  to  allow  it  in  any  State  ; 
the  President  has  none,  the  Supreme  Court  has 
none. 

Not  a  man  in  the  United  States  is  Constitu¬ 
tionally  a  slave ;  for  the  language  of  that 
Power  of  Attorney  is  imperative  —  the  People 
command  :  “  the  United  States  shall  guar¬ 
antee  to  every  State  in  this  Union  a  Republi¬ 
can  form  of  Government.” 


I  often  hear  it  asserted,  by  wise  and  good 
men,  that  the  American  People  n^ver  will 
abolish  slavery.  They  do  not  mean,  I  take  it, 
the  “  never  ”  of  eternity,  but  the  never  of  a 
very  long  period,  say  a  thousand  or  five  hun¬ 
dred  years.  Now  look  at  this.  Within  the 
last  three  hundred  and  forty  years,  three  great 
questions  have  come  up  before  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  People. 

I.  The  first  was  the  question  of  the  16th 
century.  It  was  this  —  Shall  the  Pope  of 
Rome  rule  the  British  Church,  after  his  own 
sort,  or  shall  the  British  People  rule  that 
Church,  —  determine  its  doctrines,  define  its 
forms,  and  control  its  practice  ?  At  first,  it 
seemed  as  if  the  British  People  must  cer¬ 
tainly  succumb  to  the  Roman  Pope,  for  in  his 
hand  he  had  the  armies,  the  treasure,  the  learn¬ 
ing,  the  talent  of  Europe ;  the  public  opinion 
of  the  world  was  on  his  side.  It  took  more 
than  half  a  century,  well-nigh  a  whole  hundred 
years,  to  settle  that  great  question,  and  then 
the  Pope  was  cast  out  from  the  four  seas  of 
England :  and  from  that  day  to  this,  he  has  been 
a  heretic  in  Britain.  That  was  the  question  of 
the  16th  century  in  England,  and  thus  did  our 
fathers  meet  and  answer  it  there. 

II.  In  the  17th  century,  there  came  another 
question,  equally  terrible.  It  was  this  —  Shall 
the  Stuart  kings  control  the  British  State,  or 
shall  it  be  amenable  to  the  British  People, — 


King,  Lords  and  Commons,  with  a  Constitu¬ 
tion  bottomed  on  tbe  People’s  consent  ?  Here, 
too,  there  was  an  immeflse  power  opposed  to 
the  People,  for  the  Stuarts  had  possession  of 
the  throne  ;  they  had  the  armies,  the  institu¬ 
tions,  the  talent,  the  treasure.  The  quarrel 
began  in  1603,  when  James  the  First  came  to 
the  crown;  it  did  not  end  until  1688,  when 
Britain  cast  James  the  Second  clear  over  the 
sea:  his  family  have  been  ‘‘Pretenders  ”  ever 
since.  That  strife  lasted  more  than  fourscore 
years,  and  it  'was  decided  in  favor  of  progress, 
liberty,  and  the  rights  of  man. 

But  to  settle  that  question,  some  of  the 
ablest  and  most  thoughtful  and  progressive 
families  of  England  must  flee  from  their  na¬ 
tive  land,  and  here  find  a  home  in  the  wilder¬ 
ness.  So,  while  this  question  was  getting  set¬ 
tled,  the  American  Colonies  were  at  the  same 
time  getting  planted.  They  grew  up  under 
the  shadow  of  the  American  forest,  wherein 
they  started  with  nothing  but  their  manhood 
in  them,  and  the  wilderness  about  them. 

In  the  18th  century,  they  had  grown  a  great 
and  powerful  people,  then  esteemed  some  two 
or  three  millions  strong. 

III.  Then  came  tbe  third  great  question, — 
that  of  the  18th  century,  namely —  Shall 
the  American  People  be  controlled  by  the 
British  King  and  Parliament,  or  shall  they 
make  their  own  laws  and  found  their  own  in¬ 
stitutions,  such  as  suit  alike  the  instinct  and 
the  reflection  of  the  People  ? 

Here,  too,  it  seemed  as  if  the  power  was  all 
on  one  side,  and  only  all  the  Right  on  the 
other ;  for  the  British  King  had  the  navy  and 
the  army,  he  had  the  offices,  the  institutions, 
the  church  and  the  treasure,  and  of  course  lie 
had  the  means  to  buy  up  young  ambition,  and 
control  much  energetic  talent.  That  quarrel 
began  openly  about  1758,  and  it  was  not  set¬ 
tled  until  1783.  But  here,  too,  the  same  spirit 
prevailed,  and  the  American  People  answered 
that  question  as  all  the  three  others  had  been 
settled,  in  favor  of  progress  and  the  rights  of 
man. 

Now,  in  the  19th  century,  with  the  same 
race  of  men,  there  comes  up  this  terrible 
question,  likewise  to  be  passed  on  by  the 
People, —  Shall  the  American  Republic  be  a 
Democracy,  guaranteeing  to  every  man  his 
“  natural,  essential,  unalienable  right  to  life, 
liberty,  and  the  pursuit  of  happiness,”  or  shall 
it  degenerate  down  into  a  despotism,  where 
property  in  man  is  recognized  as  sacred,  and 


20 


that  despotism  spread  itself  until  every  foot¬ 
step  of  Democracy  is  wiped  clean  out  of  the 
continent  1  • 

Now,  as  before,  the  chances  seem  to  be 
against  us  ;  for  the  Slave  Power  has  got  pos¬ 
session  of  the  Government,  it  controls  the 
Church  likewise,  it  has  the  army  and  navy,  it 
holds  the  mighty  treasure  of  this  continent ; 
and  it  has  the  means  to  buy  up  young  ambition, 
and  take  aspiring  talent  in  its  hand.  But  the 
Anglo-Saxon  blood  is  still  the  same  as  it  was 
in  the  18th  century,  in  the  17th,  in  the  16th, 
and  it  will  decide  this  question  as  each  of  those 
others, —  in  favor  of  progress  and  the  rights 
of  man.  A  nation,  a  great  tribe  of  men,  does 
not  lose  its  historic  continuity  of  action,  unless 
it  grows  feeble  either  by  natural  or  premature 
decay,  or  mingles  an  excess  of  other  ethno¬ 
logical  elements  in  its  veins,  and  so  corrupts 
its  blood  and  perishes.  The  American  People 
has  done  neither  the  one  nor  the  other.  It  is 
not  old  enough  either  maturely  or  prematurely 
to  perish  by  decay,  and  it  has  not  yet  filtered 
bad  blood  enough  into  its  veins  to  change  its 
character.  Depend  upon  it,  we  shall  do  as 
our  great  grandfathers  did  in  Britain  in  the 
16th  century;  as  our  grandfathers  in  Britain 
did  in  the  1 7  th  century ;  and  as  our  fathers  in 
America  did  in  the  18th  century.  If  the 
Slave  Power  retreat,  it  will  be  come  up  with 
and  run  over;  if  it  stand  still,  it  will  be  trodden 
down ;  if  it  advance  against  the  Progressive 
columns  of  Mankind,  it  will  be  met  and  dashed 
to  pieces.  Its  Nature  of  wickedness  is  its 
manifest  Destiny  of  Ruin. 

But,  alas!  each  of  those  three  great  ques¬ 
tions  was  settled  by  war.  Yet  it  seemed  at 
first  the  evil  might  be  abolished  by  peaceful 
arbitrament.  Surely,  there  were  historical 
precedents  and  theological  doctrines  enough  in 
the  16th  century  to  have  given  the  People  of 
Britain  control  over  their  own  church ;  in  the 
17th  century,  there  was  law  enough  to  secure 
Britain  a  constitutional  and  limited  govern¬ 
ment;  and  in  the  18th  century,  our  fathers  had 
enough  charters,  statutes,  customs  on  their 
side,  and  still  more,  enough  Right,  to  enable 
them  to  settle  the  question,  we  should  sup¬ 
pose,  peacefully,  and  without  drawing  the 
sword.  But  the  party  that  was  to  be  over¬ 
come,  the  party  that  must  yield,  in  the  16th 
century,  in  the  17th,  in  the  18th,  was  the  same 
that  held  the  purse  in  its  left  hand,  and  the 
sword  in  its  right  hand  ;  and  when  did  such  a 
party  ever  yield  until  that  purse  was  clutched 
back,  and  that  sword  was  violently  wrenched 


away  and  taken  to  cleave  the  tyrant  down 
from  crown  to  groin  ?  Never  yet. 

The  time,  I  think,  has  passed  by  when  the 
great  American  question  of  the  1 9th  century 
could  have  been  settled  without  bloodshed.  In 
1850  it  was  possible.  It  may  be  that  in  1854, 
when  the  Kansas-Nebraska  question  was  before 
Congress,  there  was  still  a  chance  for  a  peace¬ 
ful  settlement  of  the  matter.  But  as  that  op¬ 
portunity  has  been  lost,  and  the  ambition  or 
the  Slave  Power  has  become  so  greatly  in¬ 
creased,  I  think  now  this  terrible  question  must 
be  settled,  as  all  the  preceding  ones,  by  vio¬ 
lence  and  the  sword.  I  deplore  it  exceedingly. 
I  hate  war,  but  injustice  worse  than  war.  Had 
I  lived  in  the  16th  century,  I  would  have  en¬ 
treated  the  Pope  ;  and  when  he  would  not  be 
supplicated  with  words,  I  would  have  persuaded 
him  with  the  battle-axe.  In  the  17  th  centurv, 
I  would  have  argued,  and  quoted  Magna 
Charta,  customs,  statutes  ;  and  when  the  Tyrant 
would  not  yield,  I  would  have  shown  him, 
what  Cromwell  also  taught,  that  kings,  too, 
had  a  joint  in  their  necks,  and  that  the  People 
could  find  it.  In  the  18th  century,  I  would 
have  petitioned,  and  remonstrated,  and  cast 
“  myself  at  the  foot  of  the  throne,”  as  our  fa¬ 
thers  did  ;  but  when  spurned  from  that  throne, 
I  would  have  done  as  they  did,  cast  my  pewter 
spoons  and  platters  into  bullets,  sold  my  last 
load  of  hay  to  buy  a  musket,  beaten  my 
ploughshare  into  a  sword,  and  said,  “  Liberty 
first,  ploughing  afterwards.”  So,  in  the  19th 
century,  sad  as  it  is,  I  think  we  must  come  at 
last  to  that  same  issue.  I  have  confidence  in 
the  Justice  of  mankind,  but  Wrath  is  the 
flaming  sword  with  which  man  so  often  fights 
the  battles  of  Humanity. 

New  England,  Massachusetts  —  I  do  not 
know  what  there  is  in  her  blood,  but  there 
is  this  in  her  history,  that  all  the  great  ideas 
which  have  made  their  fortune  in  America, 
and  which  at  the  same  time  have  also  made 
America’s  fortune,  they  are  New  England 
ideas — Massachusetts  ideas.  There  was  some¬ 
thing  in  the  blood  of  those  Puritans  who 
planted  themselves  on  these  shores,  which 
gave  their  descendants  a  Power  of  Ideas 
and  a  Power  of  Action,  such  as  no  people 
before  our  time  has  ever  had.  It  was  Massa¬ 
chusetts  that  took  the  initiative  in  the  great 
strife  of  the  18th  century;  here  are  the  early 
monuments  of  the  Revolutionary  victory.  It 
is  the  same  Massachusetts  that  has  taken  the 
initiative  in  the  greater  strife  of  the  19th  centu- 


21 


ry ;  here  are  the  battle  fields  of  the  Anti-Slavery 
Revolution, —  they  also  will  be  one  day  beauti¬ 
ful  with  monuments  of  victory.  Wherever  the 
Platform  of  Freedom  is  laid  down,  it  is  New- 
England  men,  Massachusetts  men,  who  stand 
up  thereon.  It  may  be  in  New  York,  in 
Washington,  in  Cincinnati,  in  Philadelphia,  in 
California, —  no  matter  where,  it  is  New  Eng¬ 
land  blood  that  is  there  ;  it  is  the  voice  of  Mas¬ 
sachusetts  that  speaks.  Here  too,  this  great 
work  began,  here  let  the  first  decisive  step  be 
taken. 

There  are  two  things  I  want  Massachusetts 
to  do.  A  few  years  ago,  Charles  Sumner  was 
railed  at  in  the  Senate  because  he  had  sworn 
to  support  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States,  and  was  asked  how  he  could  do  that. 
He  said,  “  I  support  the  Constitution  of  the 
United  States  as  I  understand  the  Constitution 
of  the  United  States.”  They  then  asked  him, 
“  Would  you  do  this  thing  1  ”  “  Yes.”  “Would 
you  do  that  thing  V*  “  Yes  ?  ”  “  Would  you 
return  a  fugitive  slave  ?  ”  I  think  it  was  Mr. 
Mason  or  some  of  his  coadjutors  who  asked 
that  question,  —  and  Mr.  Sumner  said,  “  Is  thy 
servant  a  dog,  that  he  should  do  this  thing  ?  ” 
There  spoke  the  old  manly  spirit  of  Massachu¬ 
setts  !  It  wgl  be  writ  on  his  monument  one 
day — letters  of  gold  on  whitest  stone.  Now,  I 
want  the  State  of  Massachusetts  to  say  to  the 
Union,  “Is  thy  servant  a  dog,  that  she  should 
return  a  fugitive  slave  ?  ” 

1.  I  want  Massachusetts  to  pass  a  law,  next 
winter,  declaring  that  no  fugitive  slave  shall 
ever  be  returned  from  her  soil,  but  whatsoever 
fugitive  slave  sets  his  foot  here,  that  fugitive 
slave  is  free,  and  the  arm  of  Massachusetts 
which  holds  the  sword,  shall  be  stretched  out 
over  that  man,  and  strike  down  whoever 
strikes  at  him.  There  is  a  resolution  before 
this  body  which  looks  to  that  very  purpose  ; 
and  next  autumn  there  will  be  a  petition  circu¬ 
lated  before  the  People  of  Massachusetts,  ask¬ 
ing  the  Legislature  to  do  that  thing.  I  hope 


every  man  of  you  will  put  your  name  to  it : 
I  know  every  woman  will  ;  for  the  conscience 
of  woman  outruns  the  prudence  and  the  cun¬ 
ning  of  man :  I  would  follow  her  conscience 
rather  than  his  cunning.  Let  us  declare  a 
Kidnapper’s  Court  a  “Nuisance,”  to  be  abated 
as  other  nuisances,  with  the  rough,  swift  hand 
of  the  People.  I  say  that  solemnly,  knowing 
what  I  say. 

2.  Then,  I  wrant  the  Legislature  to  instruct 
our  Senators  and  request  our  Representatives 
in  Congress  to  use  all  their  influence  to  ful¬ 
fil  the  guaranty  in  the  4th  article  of  the  Con¬ 
stitution,  and  secure  “a  Republican  form  of 

Government  to  everv  State  in  this  Union.” 

* 

We  have  asked  many  things  of  the  dear  old 
Commonwealth  before  now,  —  always  things 
unpopular  at  first.  She  gave  us  a  patient  hear¬ 
ing,  listened,  and  has  been  convinced  that  we 
only  outrun  the  public  conscience  a  little.  So 
she  has  granted  almost  every  request  we  have 
ever  made  of  her.  We  did  not  come  before  an 
unjust  Judge,  neither  fearing  God  nor  regard¬ 
ing  man,  who  complied  with  our  petition  only 
to  be  rid  of  our  complaint.  We  appealed  to  a 
thoughtful  and  considerate  People,  who  granted 
our  desire  when  they  both  felt  and  saw  that  we 
asked  only  Justice,  the  common  Right  of 
all,  which  is  likewise  the  common  Interest  of 
each.  Dear  old  State  —  she  will  comply  with 
our  request  in  this  matter  also;  not  perhaps 
at  once,  but  at  length.  Nihil  saltatim ,  gradatim 
omne. 

Let  Massachusetts  do  these  two  things,  and 
you  will  see  presently  the  other  New  England 
States  follow.  New  York,  Wisconsin,  Minne¬ 
sota,  Michigan,  Ohio,  even  Illinois,  and  Indi¬ 
ana,  and  Pennsylvania,  will  presently  take  the 
same  ground  ;  and  if  wre  go  on  in  this  way,  it 
will  not  be  long  before  slavery  is  abolished  in 
this  nation  ;  and  when  the  Declaration  of  In¬ 
dependence  is  read  on  the  Fourth  of  July,  1876, 
there  will  not  be  a  slave  in  the  United  States. 
Then  what  a  future  is  before  us  ! 


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